watching; for his presence there would need explanation. The girl had drawn away from him, and was peering at the man in the doorway; she spoke his name hesitatingly at last—almost apologetically.

"Mr. Quarle?" she asked. "Do you want me?"

The man who stepped out from the doorway was a thickly-set man of between fifty and sixty years[52] of age, with thin grey hair and with a somewhat sour-looking face. His shoulders were very broad, and he had the appearance almost of a man whose head has been set too far forward; the sharp clean-shaven face was thrust well out, as though the man spent his time in peering into everything about him. He carried his hands locked behind him; his voice was rather harsh. Certainly there was nothing amiable-looking about him.

[52]

"I don't want you—but your father's asking for you," said the man.

"I'll go in at once," said Bessie. "Oh—Mr. Quarle," she added nervously, slipping her hand through the arm of the man, and drawing him forward a little—"this is Mr. Byfield—a friend of mine."

"Pleased to know you, sir," said Quarle, with a face that belied his words. "New lodger?"

"I live—next door," said Gilbert, a little lamely. For the girl had run into the house, and the situation was an absurd one. The only fashion in which he could leave this man, whose appearance he did not like, was by an undignified exit over the wall; and he had no wish for that. He could have gone out into the little alley behind, but he knew that the door at the end of his own particular garden was always kept bolted. So he stood somewhat awkwardly looking at the newcomer, and wondering whether he had better say something about the moon, or the warmth of the night. The man relieved him of the difficulty by speaking first.

"My name is Simon Quarle," he said, coming a step or two nearer to the younger man, and lowering[53] his voice. "You're not likely to have heard of me; very few people have, because I keep myself to myself. It's a habit of mine."

[53]

"And a very excellent habit too, I should imagine," said Gilbert with meaning.

"I could wish it was a more general habit," retorted Quarle, with a quick glance at the house. "Now, sir—I'm old enough to be your father—old enough, under happier circumstances, to be the father of that girl who has just left us. And the 

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