r they were at the hospital, and Horace was
kneeling at the bedside of his long-lost brother.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

LOVE FIGHTS HIS WAY INTO THE BEAUTIFUL PALACE.

Reginald recollected little of what happened on that terrible night when
he found himself suddenly face to face with his dead enemy.

He had a vague impression of calling the landlady and of seeing the body
carried from the pestiferous room. But whether he helped to carry it
himself or not he could not remember.

When he next was conscious of anything the sun was struggling through
the rafters over his head, as he lay in the bed beside Love, who slept
still, heavily but uneasily.

The other lodgers had all risen and left the place; and when with a
shudder he glanced towards the corner where the sick man last night had
died, that bed was empty too.

He rose silently, without disturbing his companion, and made his way
unsteadily down the ladder in search of the woman.

She met him with a scowl. She had found two five-pound notes in the
dead man's pocket, and consequently wanted to hear no more about him.

"Took to the mortuary, of course," said she, in answer to Reginald's
question. "Where else do you expect?"

"Can you tell me his name, or anything about him? I knew him once."

She looked blacker than ever at this. It seemed to her guilty
conscience like a covert claim to the dead man's belongings, and she
bridled up accordingly.

"I know nothing about him--no more than I know about you."

"Don't you know his name?" said Reginald.

"No. Do I know _your_ name? No! And I don't want to!"

"Don't be angry," he said. "No one means any harm to you. How long has
he been here?"

"I don't know. A week. And he was bad when he came. He never caught
it here."

"Did any doctor see him?"

"Doctor! no," snarled the woman. "Isn't it bad enough to have a man
bring smallpox into a place without calling in doctors, to give the
place a bad name and take a body's living from them? I suppose you'll
go and give me a character now. I wish I'd never took you in. I hated
the sight of you from the first."

She spoke so bitterly, and at the same time so anxiously, that Reginald
felt half sorry for her.

"I'll do you no harm," said he, gently. "Goodness knows I've done harm
enough in my time."

The last words, though muttered to himself, did not escape the quick ear
of the woman, and they pleased her. She was used to strange characters
i