disappointment would drive
them more fiercely on to employ every expedient. They might even now be
at the gate; at the moment, however, he felt as if he hardly cared, only
that he was very tired, too exhausted to move on. His exertions of the
last few days had been of no ordinary kind; his shoulder was stiff and
it pained.

"Here you are, sir." The servant had entered and reentered, had set the
table without the man in the arm-chair being conscious of his coming and
going. "Remembered my master inviting you once, when you were here, to
pitch your camp at Rosemary Villa any time you should be after yearning
for that quietood essential for literary composition and to windin' up
the campaign on your book. So when I saw your luggage--"

"Exactly." It was curious the man should have spoken thus, should have
voiced one of the very subterfuges Steele had had in mind himself to
utter, to show pretext for his too abrupt appearance. But now--?

The situation was changed; yet he felt too exhausted to disavow the
servant's conclusion. Certainly the episode of the luggage had made his
task easier at this point; only, however, to enhance the greater
hazards, as if fate were again laughing at him, offering him too much
ease, too great comfort, seeking to allure him with a false estimate of
his security. As he ate, mechanically, but with the zest of one who had
long fasted, he listened; again a vehicle went by; then another.

"Rather livelier than usual to-night?" he observed and received an
affirmative answer. Some evenings now you'd hardly ever hear anything
passing from sunset to sunrise and find it as quiet as the tomb.

Who lived on the right, on the left? The visitor asked several questions
casually; the house to the right, the man thought, might be vacant; no
one appeared to live in it very long. At least the moving van seemed to
have acquired a habit of stopping there; the one on the left had a more
stable tenant; a lady who appeared in the pantomime, or the opera, he
wasn't sure which,--only, foreign people sometimes went in and out.

John Steele rose with an effort; no, there was nothing more he required,
except rest! Which room would he prefer, he was asked when he found
himself on the upper landing; the man had put his things in a front
chamber; but the back one was larger. John Steele forced himself to
consider; he even inspected both of the rooms; that on the front floor
had one window facing the Row; the second cha