On the day after the committal a lady, who had got out of a cab at
the corner of Northumberland Street, in the Marylebone Road, walked
up that very uninviting street, and knocked at a door just opposite
to the deadest part of the dead wall of the Marylebone Workhouse.
Here lived Mrs. and Miss Meager,--and also on occasions Mr. Meager,
who, however, was simply a trouble and annoyance in the world,
going about to race-courses, and occasionally, perhaps, to worse
places, and being of no slightest use to the two poor hard-worked
women,--mother and daughter,--who endeavoured to get their living by
letting lodgings. The task was difficult, for it is not everybody who
likes to look out upon the dead wall of a workhouse, and they who
do are disposed to think that their willingness that way should be
considered in the rent. But Mr. Emilius, when the cruelty of his
wife's friends deprived him of the short-lived luxury of his mansion
in Lowndes Square, had found in Northumberland Street a congenial
retreat, and had for a while trusted to Mrs. and Miss Meager for all
his domestic comforts. Mr. Emilius was always a favourite with new
friends, and had not as yet had his Northumberland Street gloss
rubbed altogether off him when Mr. Bonteen was murdered. As it
happened, on that night, or rather early in the day, for Meager
had returned to the bosom of his family after a somewhat prolonged
absence in the provinces, and therefore the date had become specially
remarkable in the Meager family from the double event,--Mr. Meager
had declared that unless his wife could supply him with a five-pound
note he must cut his throat instantly. His wife and daughter had
regretted the necessity, but had declared the alternative to be out
of the question. Whereupon Mr. Meager had endeavoured to force the
lock of an old bureau with a carving-knife, and there had been some
slight personal encounter,--after which he had had some gin and had
gone to bed. Mrs. Meager remembered the day very well indeed, and
Miss Meager, when the police came the next morning, had accounted for
her black eye by a tragical account of a fall she had had against
the bed-post in the dark. Up to that period Mr. Emilius had been
everything that was sweet and good,--an excellent, eloquent
clergyman, who was being ill-treated by his wife's wealthy relations,
who was soft in his manners and civil in his words, and never gave
more trouble than was necessary. The period, too, would