FIRST.

FATAL FRIENDSHIP.

CHAPTER I.

THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY.

"What about?" There are some houses whereof the outward aspect is
sealed with the seal of respectability--houses which inspire confidence
in the minds of the most sceptical of butchers and bakers--houses at
whose area-gates the tradesman delivers his goods undoubtingly, and
from whose spotless door-steps the vagabond children of the
neighbourhood recoil as from a shrine too sacred for their gambols.

Such a house made its presence obvious, some years ago, in one of the
smaller streets of that west-central region which lies between Holborn
and St. Pancras Church. It is perhaps the nature of
ultra-respectability to be disagreeably conspicuous. The unsullied
brightness of No. 14 Fitzgeorge-street was a standing reproach to every
other house in the dingy thorough-fare. That one spot of cleanliness
made the surrounding dirt cruelly palpable. The muslin curtains in the
parlour windows of No. 15 would not have appeared of such a smoky
yellow if the curtains of No. 14 had not been of such a pharisaical
whiteness. Mrs. Magson, at No. 13, was a humble letter of lodgings,
always more or less in arrear with the demands of quarter-day; and it
seemed a hard thing that her door-steps, whereon were expended much
labour and hearthstone--not to mention house-flannel, which was in
itself no unimportant item in the annual expenses--should be always
thrown in the shade by the surpassing purity of the steps before No. 14.

Not satisfied with being the very pink and pattern of respectability,
the objectionable house even aspired to a kind of prettiness. It was as
bright, and pleasant, and rural of aspect as any house within earshot
of the roar and rattle of Holborn can be. There were flowers in the
windows; gaudy scarlet geraniums, which seemed to enjoy an immunity
from all the ills to which geraniums are subject, so impossible was it
to discover a faded leaf amongst their greenness, or the presence of
blight amidst their wealth of blossom. There were birdcages within the
shadow of the muslin curtains, and the colouring of the newly-pointed
brickwork was agreeably relieved by the vivid green of Venetian blinds.
The freshly-varnished street-door bore a brass-plate, on which to look
was to be dazzled; and the effect produced by this combination of white
door-step, scarlet geranium, green blind, and brass-plate was
obtrusively brilliant.

Those who had been so pri