.'

Stockdale sighed, and said that he thought hers a mistaken generosity
when it extended to assisting those who cheated the king of his dues. 'At
any rate, you will let me make him keep his distance as your lover, and
tell him flatly that you are not for him?'

'Please not, at present,' she said. 'I don't wish to offend my old
neighbours. It is not only Owlett who is concerned.'

'This is too bad,' said Stockdale impatiently.

'On my honour, I won't encourage him as my lover,' Lizzy answered
earnestly. 'A reasonable man will be satisfied with that.'

'Well, so I am,' said Stockdale, his countenance clearing.

CHAPTER III--THE MYSTERIOUS GREATCOAT

Stockdale now began to notice more particularly a feature in the life of
his fair landlady, which he had casually observed but scarcely ever
thought of before. It was that she was markedly irregular in her hours
of rising. For a week or two she would be tolerably punctual, reaching
the ground-floor within a few minutes of half-past seven. Then suddenly
she would not be visible till twelve at noon, perhaps for three or four
days in succession; and twice he had certain proof that she did not leave
her room till half-past three in the afternoon. The second time that
this extreme lateness came under his notice was on a day when he had
particularly wished to consult with her about his future movements; and
he concluded, as he always had done, that she had a cold, headache, or
other ailment, unless she had kept herself invisible to avoid meeting and
talking to him, which he could hardly believe. The former supposition
was disproved, however, by her innocently saying, some days later, when
they were speaking on a question of health, that she had never had a
moment's heaviness, headache, or illness of any kind since the previous
January twelvemonth.

'I am glad to hear it,' said he. 'I thought quite otherwise.'

'What, do I look sickly?' she asked, turning up her face to show the
impossibility of his gazing on it and holding such a belief for a moment.

'Not at all; I merely thought so from your being sometimes obliged to
keep your room through the best part of the day.'

'O, as for that--it means nothing,' she murmured, with a look which some
might have called cold, and which was the worst look that he liked to see
upon her. 'It is pure sleepiness, Mr. Stockdale.'

'Never!'

'It is, I tell you. When I stay in my room till half-past three in the
afte