a fire and left out his tea-things. "I'll have some tea," he
thought, as he lit the gas and saw them there. "I feel as if I want
cheering up, and it can't make me any more shaky than I am."

And when his fire was crackling and blazing up, and his kettle beginning
to sing, he felt more cheerful already. What, after all, if it did take
some time to get his ring again? He must make some excuse or other; and,
should the worst come to the worst, "I suppose," he thought, "I could
get another made like it--though, when I come to think of it, I'll be
shot if I remember exactly what it was like, or what the words inside it
were, to be sure about them; still, very likely old Vidler would
recollect, and I dessay it won't turn out to be necessa----What the
devil's that?"

He had the house to himself after nightfall, and he remembered that his
private door could not be opened now without a special key; yet he could
not help a fancy that some one was groping his way up the staircase
outside.

"It's only the boards creaking, or the pipes leaking through," he
thought. "I must have the place done up. But I'm as nervous as a cat
to-night."

The steps were nearer and nearer--they stopped at the door--there was a
loud commanding blow on the panels.

"Who's here at this time of night?" cried Leander, aloud. "Come in, if
you want to!"

But the door remained shut, and there came another rap, even more
imperious.

"I shall go mad if this goes on!" he muttered, and making a desperate
rush to the door, threw it wide open, and then staggered back
panic-stricken.

Upon the threshold stood a tall figure in classical drapery. His eyes
might have deceived him in the omnibus; but here, in the crude gaslight,
he could not be mistaken. It was the statue he had last seen in
Rosherwich Gardens--now, in some strange and wondrous way,
moving--alive!

A DISTINGUISHED STRANGER

III.

"How could it be a dream? Yet there
She stood, the moveless image fair!"

_The Earthly Paradise._

With slow and stately tread the statue advanced towards the centre of
the hairdresser's humble sitting-room, and stood there awhile, gazing
about her with something of scornful wonder in her calm cold face. As
she turned her head, the wide, deeply-cut sockets seemed the home of
shadowy eyes; her face, her bared arms, and the long straight folds of
her robe were all of the same greyish-yellow hue; the boards creaked
under her sandalled