had reason to believe
that his wife's treatment of him proceeded from folly and fickleness,
and that his daughter had inherited her foibles. It was not worth while,
he said to himself, to make any radical change in his way of life:
Lesley must accommodate herself, if she could, to his habits; and if she
could not, she must go back to her mother. He was not prepared, he told
himself, to alter his hours, or his friendships, or his peculiarities
one whit for Lesley's sake.

Lesley arrived an hour later than the time at which she had been
expected. It was nearly eight o'clock when her cab stopped at the door
of the house in Upper Woburn Place, and the evening was foggy and cold.
To Lesley, fresh from the clear skies and air of a French city, street,
house, and atmosphere alike seemed depressing. The chimes of St.
Pancras' church, woefully out of tune, fell on her ear, and made her
shiver as she mounted the steps that led to the front door. How dear
they were to grow to her in time she did not then suspect, nor would
have easily believed! At present their discordance was part of the
general discordance of all things, and increased the weight of dejection
which lay upon her. Her mother's maid had orders to deliver her over to
Mr. Brooke and then to come away: she was not to spend an hour in the
house, nor to partake of food within its walls. She had strict orders
from Lady Alice on this point.

The house was a very good house, as London dwellings go; but to Lesley's
eyes it looked strangely mean and narrow. It was very tall, and the
front was painted a chocolate brown. The double front doors, which
opened to admit Lesley's boxes, showed an ordinary London hall, narrow,
crowded with an oaken chest, an umbrella and hat stand, and lighted by a
flaring gas lamp. At these doors two persons showed themselves; a neat
but hard-featured maid-servant, and a lady of uncertain age, whom Lesley
correctly guessed to be his sister and housekeeper, Miss Brooke. There
was no sign of her father.

"Is this Mr. Brooke's house?" inquired Dayman, formally. She used to
know Mr. Brooke by sight, for she had lived with Lady Alice for many
years.

"Yes, this is the house, and this is his daughter, I suppose?" said Miss
Brooke, coming forward, and taking Lesley's limp hand in hers. Miss
Brooke had a keen, clever, honest face, but she was undeniably plain,
and Lesley was not in a condition to appreciate the kindness of her
glance.

"I must see Mr