’Not a soul remained in his parlour besides himself, and he began picking up the pipes and glasses his customers had hastily relinquished.  At length a young lady about seventeen or eighteen came in.  She asked if a woman was there waiting for herself—­Miss Jane Taylor.  He said no; asked the young lady if she would wait, and showed her into the small inner room.  There was a glass-pane in the partition dividing this room from the bar to enable the landlord to see if his visitors, who sat there, wanted anything.  A curious awkwardness and melancholy about the behaviour of the girl who called, caused my informant to look frequently at her through the partition.  She seemed weary of her life, and sat with her face buried in her hands, evidently quite out of her element in such a house.  Then a woman much older came in and greeted Miss Taylor by name.  The man distinctly heard the following words pass between them:—­

’"Why have you not brought him?”

’"He is ill; he is not likely to live through the night.”

’At this announcement from the elderly woman, the young lady fell to the floor in a swoon, apparently overcome by the news.  The landlord ran in and lifted her up.  Well, do what they would they could not for a long time bring her back to consciousness, and began to be much alarmed.  “Who is she?” the innkeeper said to the other woman.  “I know her,” the other said, with deep meaning in her tone.  The elderly and young woman seemed allied, and yet strangers.

’She now showed signs of life, and it struck him (he was plainly of an inquisitive turn), that in her half-bewildered state he might get some information from her.  He stooped over her, put his mouth to her ear, and said sharply, “What’s your name?” “To catch a woman napping is difficult, even when she’s half dead; but I did it,” says the gatekeeper.  When he asked her her name, she said immediately—­

‘"Cytherea”—­and stopped suddenly.’

‘My own name!’ said Cytherea.

’Yes—­your name.  Well, the gateman thought at the time it might be equally with Jane a name she had invented for the occasion, that they might not trace her; but I think it was truth unconsciously uttered, for she added directly afterwards:  “O, what have I said!” and was quite overcome again—­this time with fright.  Her vexation that the woman now doubted the genuineness of her other name was very much greater than that the innkeeper did, and it is evident that to blind the woman was her main object.  He also learnt from words the elderly woman casually dropped, that meetings of the same kind had been held before, and that the falseness of the soi-disant Miss Jane Taylor’s name had never been suspected by this dependent or confederate till then.