inquired.

'Biffen will look in, I dare say. Perhaps Milvain.'

'I think I shall take Willie to mother's. I shall be back before eight.'

'Amy, don't say anything about the books.'

'No, no.'

'I suppose they always ask you when we think of removing over the way?'

He pointed in a direction that suggested Marylebone Workhouse. Amy tried
to laugh, but a woman with a child in her arms has no keen relish for
such jokes.

'I don't talk to them about our affairs,' she said.

'That's best.'

She left home about three o'clock, the servant going with her to carry
the child.

At five a familiar knock sounded through the flat; it was a heavy rap
followed by half-a-dozen light ones, like a reverberating echo, the last
stroke scarcely audible. Reardon laid down his book, but kept his pipe
in his mouth, and went to the door. A tall, thin man stood there, with a
slouch hat and long grey overcoat. He shook hands silently, hung his hat
in the passage, and came forward into the study.

His name was Harold Biffen, and, to judge from his appearance, he did
not belong to the race of common mortals. His excessive meagreness would
all but have qualified him to enter an exhibition in the capacity of
living skeleton, and the garments which hung upon this framework would
perhaps have sold for three-and-sixpence at an old-clothes dealer's. But
the man was superior to these accidents of flesh and raiment. He had
a fine face: large, gentle eyes, nose slightly aquiline, small and
delicate mouth. Thick black hair fell to his coat-collar; he wore a
heavy moustache and a full beard. In his gait there was a singular
dignity; only a man of cultivated mind and graceful character could move
and stand as he did.

His first act on entering the room was to take from his pocket a pipe,
a pouch, a little tobacco-stopper, and a box of matches, all of which
he arranged carefully on a corner of the central table. Then he drew
forward a chair and seated himself.

'Take your top-coat off;' said Reardon.

'Thanks, not this evening.'

'Why the deuce not?'

'Not this evening, thanks.'

The reason, as soon as Reardon sought for it, was obvious. Biffen had
no ordinary coat beneath the other. To have referred to this fact would
have been indelicate; the novelist of course understood it, and smiled,
but with no mirth.

'Let me have your Sophocles,' were the visitor's next words.

Reardon offered him a volume of the Oxford Pocket Classics.

'I p