and her agitated features smoothed into their usual commonplace. She sat down in the chair which he had indicated.
“If I take it up I must understand every detail,” said he. “Take time to consider. The smallest point may be the most essential. You say that the man came ten days ago, and paid you for a fortnight’s board and lodging?”
“He asked my terms, sir. I said fifty shillings a week. There is a small sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top of the house.”
“Well?”
“He said, ‘I’ll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my own terms.’ I’m a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and the money meant much to me. He took out a ten-pound note, and he held it out to me then and there. ‘You can have the same every fortnight for a long time to come if you keep the terms,’ he said. ‘If not, I’ll have no more to do with you.’”
“What were the terms?”
“Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house. That was all right. Lodgers often have them. Also, that he was to be left entirely to himself, and never, upon any excuse, to be disturbed.”
“Nothing wonderful in that, surely?”
“Not in reason, sir. But this is out of all reason. He has been there for ten days, and
