“I think I’ll call again.”

“Did you expect to find her at ’ome now?” asked the young woman, whose curiosity grew more eager as she watched Hilliard’s countenance.

“Perhaps,” he replied, neglecting the question, “I should find her here to-morrow morning?”

“Well, I can say as someone’s going to call, you know.”

“Please do so.”

Therewith he turned away, anxious to escape a volley of interrogation for which the landlady’s tongue was primed.

He walked into Gower Street, and pondered the awkward interview that now lay before him.  On his calling to-morrow, Miss Madeley would doubtless come to speak with him at the door; even supposing she had a parlour at her disposal, she was not likely to invite a perfect stranger into the house.  How could he make her acquaintance on the doorstep?  To be sure, he brought a message, but this commission had been so long delayed that he felt some shame about discharging it.  In any case, his delivery of the message would sound odd; there would be embarrassment on both sides.

Why was Eve so uncertain in her comings and goings?  Necessity of business, perhaps.  Yet he had expected quite the opposite state of things.  From Mrs. Brewer’s description of the girl’s character, he had imagined her leading a life of clockwork regularity.  The point was very trivial, but it somehow caused a disturbance of his thoughts, which tended to misgiving.

In the meantime he had to find quarters for himself.  Why not seek them in Gower Place?

After ten minutes’ sauntering, he retraced his steps, and walked down the side of the street opposite to that on which Eve’s lodgings were situated.  Nearly over against that particular house was a window with a card.  Carelessly he approached the door, and carelessly asked to see the rooms that were to let.  They were comfortless, but would suit his purpose for a time.  He engaged a sitting-room on the ground-floor, and a bed-room above, and went to fetch his luggage from Victoria Station.

On the steamer last night he had not slept, and now that he was once more housed, an overpowering fatigue constrained him to lie down and close his eyes.  Almost immediately lie fell into oblivion, and lay sleeping on the cranky sofa, until the entrance of a girl with tea-things awakened him.

From his parlour window he could very well observe the houses opposite without fear of drawing attention from any one on that side; and so it happened that, without deliberate purpose of espial, he watched the door of Eve Madeley’s residence for a long time; till, in fact, he grew weary of the occupation.  No one had entered; no one had come forth.  At half-past seven he took his hat and left the house.