asionally they left behind them a little miserable furniture
or worn out kitchen utensils. He was finding it ever more difficult to
let the wretched house, and for weeks together it had remained
unoccupied. But one day, about a month ago, he had been astonished by
receiving an application for the tenancy from someone who vaguely signed
himself Durand; and still further astonished by finding in the envelope
bank-notes representing a year's rent in advance. Delighted with this
windfall, and congratulating himself on not having gone to the expense
of putting the hovel into something like repair--unnecessary now, since
he had secured a tenant, and a good one, for at least twelve months--the
landlord promptly sent a receipt to this Durand, with the keys, and
thought no more about the matter.

In the principal room, on the first floor of this hovel, a little poor
furniture had been put; a shabby sofa, an equally shabby arm-chair, a
few cane-bottomed chairs, and a deal table. On the table was a tea-pot,
a small kettle over a spirit-stove, and a few cups and small cakes. A
smoky lamp shed a dim light over this depressing interior, and a handful
of coal was smouldering in the cracked grate.

And here, in these miserable surroundings, Lady Beltham was installed on
this eighteenth of December.

The great lady was even paler than usual, and her eyes shone with a
curious brilliance. That she was suffering from the most acute and
feverish nervous excitement was patent from the way in which she kept
putting her hands to her heart as though the violence of its throbbing
were unendurable, and from the restless way in which she paced the room,
stopping at every other step to listen for some sound to reach her
through the silence of the night. Once she stepped quickly from the
middle of the room to the wall opposite the door that opened on to the
staircase; she pushed ajar the door of a small cupboard and murmured
"hush," making a warning movement with her hands, as if addressing
someone concealed there; then she moved forward again and, sinking on to
the sofa, pressed her hands against her throbbing temples.

"No one yet!" she murmured presently. "Oh, I would give ten years of my
life to----! Is all really lost?" Her eyes wandered round the room.
"What a forbidding, squalid place!" and again she sprang to her feet and
paced the room. Through the grimy panes of the window she could just see
a long row of roofs and chimneys outlined aga