lar quiverings she had
experienced? Mrs Tickit, though minutely circumstantial in her reply,
had no settled opinion between five seconds and ten minutes.

She was so plainly at sea on this part of the case, and had so clearly
been startled out of slumber, that Clennam was much disposed to regard
the appearance as a dream. Without hurting Mrs Tickit's feelings with
that infidel solution of her mystery, he took it away from the cottage
with him; and probably would have retained it ever afterwards if a
circumstance had not soon happened to change his opinion. He was passing
at nightfall along the Strand, and the lamp-lighter was going on before
him, under whose hand the street-lamps, blurred by the foggy air, burst
out one after another, like so many blazing sunflowers coming into
full-blow all at once,--when a stoppage on the pavement, caused by a
train of coal-waggons toiling up from the wharves at the river-side,
brought him to a stand-still. He had been walking quickly, and going
with some current of thought, and the sudden check given to both
operations caused him to look freshly about him, as people under such
circumstances usually do.

Immediately, he saw in advance--a few people intervening, but still
so near to him that he could have touched them by stretching out
his arm--Tattycoram and a strange man of a remarkable appearance: a
swaggering man, with a high nose, and a black moustache as false in its
colour as his eyes were false in their expression, who wore his heavy
cloak with the air of a foreigner. His dress and general appearance were
those of a man on travel, and he seemed to have very recently joined
the girl. In bending down (being much taller than she was), listening
to whatever she said to him, he looked over his shoulder with the
suspicious glance of one who was not unused to be mistrustful that his
footsteps might be dogged. It was then that Clennam saw his face; as
his eyes lowered on the people behind him in the aggregate, without
particularly resting upon Clennam's face or any other.

He had scarcely turned his head about again, and it was still bent down,
listening to the girl, when the stoppage ceased, and the obstructed
stream of people flowed on. Still bending his head and listening to the
girl, he went on at her side, and Clennam followed them, resolved to
play this unexpected play out, and see where they went.

He had hardly made the determination (though he was not long about it),
when