e door behind them, and stood in a resolute attitude.

'Mr. Rawcliffe,' began Turpin, 'you must leave these lodgings, sir, on
Wednesday next.'

'Hullo! what's all this about?' cried the other. 'What do you mean,
Turpin?'

The carpenter made plain his meaning; spoke of Miss Rodney's complaint, of
the irregular payment (for his wife, in her stress, had avowed everything),
and of other subjects of dissatisfaction; the lodger must go, there was an
end of it. Rawcliffe, putting on all his dignity, demanded the legal week's
notice; Turpin demanded the sum in arrear. There was an exchange of high
words, and the interview ended with mutual defiance. A moment after Turpin
and his wife knocked at Miss Rodney's door, for she was still in her
parlour. There followed a brief conversation, with the result that Miss
Rodney graciously consented to remain, on the understanding that Mr.
Rawcliffe left the house not later than Wednesday.

Enraged at the treatment he was receiving, Rawcliffe loudly declared that
he would not budge. Turpin warned him that if he had made no preparations
for departure on Wednesday he would be forcibly ejected, and the door
closed against him.

'You haven't the right to do it,' shouted the lodger. 'I'll sue you for
damages.'

'And I,' retorted the carpenter, 'will sue you for the money you owe me!'

The end could not be doubtful. Rawcliffe, besides being a poor creature,
knew very well that it was dangerous for him to get involved in a scandal;
his stepfather, upon whom he depended, asked but a fair excuse for cutting
him adrift, and more than one grave warning had come from his mother during
the past few months. But he enjoyed a little blustering, and even at
breakfast-time on Wednesday his attitude was that of contemptuous defiance.
In vain had Mrs. Turpin tried to coax him with maternal suavity; in vain
had Mabel and Lily, when serving his meals, whispered abuse of Miss Rodney,
and promised to find some way of getting rid of her, so that Rawcliffe
might return. In a voice loud enough to be heard by his enemy in the
opposite parlour, he declared that no 'cat of a school teacher should get
the better of _him_.' As a matter of fact, however, he arranged on Tuesday
evening to take a couple of cheaper rooms just outside the town, and
ordered a cab to come for him at eleven next morning.

'You know what the understanding is, Mr. Rawcliffe,' said Turpin, putting
his head into the room as the lodger sat at