s, as if endeavouring to collect himself, but his whole
frame shook convulsively. He was about to speak, when a noise of
workmen approaching up the archway stopped him, and, turning away, he
hastened on--that dark spectral woman gliding noiselessly after him."

"Perhaps," I said, with a forced laugh--for, despite of myself, the
story was exciting my imagination as well as curiosity--"she really
_is_ a visitant from another world."

"There are not wanting those who say so," replied my friend; "but
however ghost-like her mission and appearance may be, I believe there
is no doubt that as yet she is a denizen in the flesh."

"And this Pair--where and how do they reside?"

"The man lives at his dairies, a considerable way from here, and
although he has, I am told, an extensive establishment, never goes out
but on his daily business. He is of a serious, methodistical
disposition, and, I understand, affects devotional reading a good
deal; yet he is never seen at a place of worship. He is unmarried, nor
does any relative or companion reside with him. The woman--it is
hardly known where she lives; in some miserable lonely room far away,
buried in the heart of one of those dismal courts that lurk in the
outlets of London, her way of life and means of support equally
unknown, the one object of her existence palpable to all--to come
forth at the grey of daybreak in winter and summer, in storm or shine,
and seat herself at a little distance from that man's abode, until he
makes his appearance: when he was passed her, to rise, to follow, to
track him through the livelong day with that unflagging constancy
poets are fond of ascribing to unquenchable love, which the early
Greeks attributed to their impersonations of immortal Hate."

"Surely the wild and doubtful surmises that those circumstances have
raised in people's minds must have had an injurious effect on
Maunsell's business?"

"Not at all; on the contrary, I think it has assisted it. Every
neighbourhood loves to have a mystery of its own, and we, you must
confess, have got a superlative one. The man has been found
scrupulously honest, regular, and exact in his dealings; and were we
to lose him now, and get a mere common-place person to succeed him,
half the housewives of Walworth would perish of inanition. And now,"
said Sainsbury, rising, "That I have imparted to you all I know
respecting the milkman and his familiar, let us to the drawing-room
and seek some coffee."