“In that case, it seems to me, you ought to give her the benefit of the doubt; especially as you seem to have made up your mind pretty clearly about this Mrs. What’s-her-name.”

Waymark was silent, looking at Mr. Woodstock, and reflecting.

“What are your intentions with regard to the girl?” Abraham asked, with a change in his voice, the usual friendliness coming back.  He looked at the young man in a curious way; one would almost have said, with apprehensive expectation.

“I have no intentions.”

“You would have had, but for this affair?”

“No; you are mistaken.  I know the position is difficult to realise.”

“Have you intentions, then, in any other quarter?”

“Well, perhaps yes.”

“I’ve never heard anything of this.”

“I could scarcely talk of a matter so uncertain.”

There was silence.  A sort of agitation came upon the old man ever and again, in talking.  He now grew absorbed in thought, and remained thus for several minutes, Waymark looking at him the while.  When at length Abraham raised his eyes, and they met Waymark’s, he turned them away at once, and rose from the chair.

“I’ll look into the business,” he said, taking out a bunch of keys, and putting one into the lock of a drawer in his desk.  “Yes, I’ll go and make inquiries.”  He half pulled out the drawer and rustled among some papers.

“Look here,” he said, on the point of taking something out; but, even in speaking, he altered his mind.  “No; it don’t matter.  I’ll go and make inquiries.  You can go now, if you like;—­I mean to say, I suppose you’ve told me all that’s necessary.—­Yes, you’d better go, and look in again tomorrow morning.”

Waymark went straight to Fulham.  Reaching the block of tenements which had been Ida’s home, he sought out the porter.  When the door opened at his knock, the first face that greeted him was that of Grim, who had pushed between the man’s legs and was peering up, as if in search of some familiar aspect.

From the porter he learned that the police had made that afternoon an inspection of Ida’s rooms, though with what result was not known.  The couple had clearly formed their own opinion as to Waymark’s interest in the accused girl, but took the position in a very matter-of-fact way, and were eager to hear more than they succeeded in getting out of the police.

“My main object in coming,” Waymark explained, “was to look after her cat.  I see you have been good enough to anticipate me.”

“The poor thing takes on sadly,” said the woman.  “Of course I shouldn’t have known nothing if the hofficers hadn’t come, and it ’ud just have starved to death.  It seems to know you, sir?”

“Yes, yes, I dare say.  Do you think you could make it convenient to keep the cat for the present, if I paid you for its food?”

“Well, I don’t see why not, sir; we ain’t got none of our own.”