o at first sight appeared like a professional
tramp, his shoulders having a perceptible greasiness as they passed under
the gaslight. Each pedestrian momentarily turned and regarded the other,
and the tramp-like gentleman started back.

'Good--why--is that Mr. Barnet? 'Tis Mr. Barnet, surely!'

'Yes; and you are Charlson?'

'Yes--ah--you notice my appearance. The Fates have rather ill-used me.
By-the-bye, that fifty pounds. I never paid it, did I? . . . But I was
not ungrateful!' Here the stooping man laid one hand emphatically on the
palm of the other. 'I gave you a chance, Mr. George Barnet, which many
men would have thought full value received--the chance to marry your
Lucy. As far as the world was concerned, your wife was a drowned woman,
hey?'

'Heaven forbid all that, Charlson!'

'Well, well, 'twas a wrong way of showing gratitude, I suppose. And now
a drop of something to drink for old acquaintance' sake! And Mr. Barnet,
she's again free--there's a chance now if you care for it--ha, ha!' And
the speaker pushed his tongue into his hollow cheek and slanted his eye
in the old fashion.

'I know all,' said Barnet quickly; and slipping a small present into the
hands of the needy, saddening man, he stepped ahead and was soon in the
outskirts of the town.

He reached the harbour-road, and paused before the entrance to a well-
known house. It was so highly bosomed in trees and shrubs planted since
the erection of the building that one would scarcely have recognized the
spot as that which had been a mere neglected slope till chosen as a site
for a dwelling. He opened the swing-gate, closed it noiselessly, and
gently moved into the semicircular drive, which remained exactly as it
had been marked out by Barnet on the morning when Lucy Savile ran in to
thank him for procuring her the post of governess to Downe's children.
But the growth of trees and bushes which revealed itself at every step
was beyond all expectation; sun-proof and moon-proof bowers vaulted the
walks, and the walls of the house were uniformly bearded with creeping
plants as high as the first-floor windows.

After lingering for a few minutes in the dusk of the bending boughs, the
visitor rang the door-bell, and on the servant appearing, he announced
himself as 'an old friend of Mrs. Downe's.'

The hall was lighted, but not brightly, the gas being turned low, as if
visitors were rare. There was a stagnation in the dwelling; it seemed to