nished as this room, that the house stood
solitary among trees, and that even these, and the tangled garden that
she determined must surround the house, were as listening and as
expectant as herself and the waiting figure of the boy. Once more, as
if to verify her semi-passive imaginative excursion, she moved to the
door....

Ah! what nonsense it was. Here she was, wide awake again, in her own
familiar room, with the firelight on the walls.

... Well, well; sleep was a curious thing; and so was imagination....

... At any rate she had written to Mr. Cathcart.

_Chapter XI_

I

The "Cock Inn" is situated in Fleet Street, not twenty yards from
Mitre Court and scarcely fifty from the passage that leads down to the
court where Mr. James Morton still has his chambers.

It was a convenient place, therefore, for Laurie to lunch in, and he
generally made his appearance there a few minutes before one o'clock
to partake of a small rump steak and a pewter mug of beer. Sometimes
he came alone, sometimes in company; and by a carefully thought out
system of tips he usually managed to have reserved for him at least
until one o'clock a particular seat in a particular partition in that
row of stable-like shelters that run the length of the room opposite
the door on the first floor.

On the twenty-third of February, however--it was a Friday, by the way,
and boiled plaice would have to be eaten instead of rump steak--he was
a little annoyed to find his seat already occupied by a small,
brisk-looking man with a grey beard and spectacles, who, with a
newspaper propped in front of him, was also engaged in the consumption
of boiled plaice.

The little man looked up at him sharply, like a bird disturbed in a
meal, and then down again upon the paper. Laurie noticed that his hat
and stick were laid upon the adjoining chair as if to retain it. He
hesitated an instant; then he slid in on the other side, opposite the
stranger, tapped his glass with his knife, and sat down.

When the waiter came, a familiarly deferential man with whiskers,
Laurie, with a slight look of peevishness, gave his order, and glanced
reproachfully at the occupied seat. The waiter gave the ghost of a
shrug with his shoulders, significant of apologetic helplessness, and
went away.

A minute later Mr. Morton entered, glanced this way and that, nodding
imperceptibly to Laurie, and was just moving off to a less occupied
table when the stranger looked up.