Widdershins

tairs. Not until later did there return to him a hazy memory that he had left the candle burning on the table, had opened the door no wider than was necessary to allow the passage of his body, and

t, but Oleron ga

of light behind one of his red blinds. Then, still looking over his shoulder, he moved stumblingly up the square. There was a small pub

aid, and then stooped t

gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the space where the white-haired landlady moved among her taps and bottles. Oleron sat down

voices he heard across the public-house would u

me he ordered

oken step-certainly not that pith-white, fascinating room. He would go back for the present to his old arrangement, of workroom and separate sleeping-quarters

refilled, and

trod on them, and women who came into a man's place and brushed their hair in the dark, were reasons enough! He was querulous and injured about it all. He had taken the place for himself, not

it stopped seven or eight inches above the level of the counter. There was no partition at the farther bar. Presently Ole

seen from the other bar; but this brought h

er remark that the winter had been a bad one for influenza, but that the spring weather seemed to be coming at last.... Even this slight contact with the commonplace steadied Oleron a little;

use. Suppose he were to tell the white-haired landlady all about it-to tell her that a caller had scratched her hand on a nail, had later had the bad luck to put her foot through a rotten stair, and that he himself, in an old house full of squeaks and creaks and whispers, had heard a minute noise and had bolted from it in fright-what would sh

le the hash of that sixteenth chapter of Romilly (fancy, he had actually been fool enough to think of destroying fifteen chapters!) and

his brandy a

grew clearer than it had been since morning. And the clearer it grew, the less final did his boastful self-assurances become, and the firmer his conviction that, when all explanations had been made, there remai

ad declared that there was something wrong with the place. She had seen it before he had. Well and good. One thing stood out clearly: namely, that if this was so, she must be kept away for

d not do that kind of thing. With Elsie made secure, he could not with any respect to himself suffer himself to be turned out by

ion, and turned in his walk abruptly. Should fear grow on hi

wo men were standing talking on the kerb. Oleron noticed that a sudden silence fell on them as he passed, and he noticed further that the long-nosed Barrett, whom he p

ake it up and to make the tour of his five rooms before retiring. It was as he returned from the kitchen across his little hall t

as clumsy, and it ran from beginning to end without comma or period. Oleron

angements for the preparing of his breakfasts and the cleaning-out of his place. The sting lay in the tail, that is to sa

it! Very well; they would see about that on the morrow.... For the r

pressed rage

er at anything that had ever passed between Paul Oleron and Elsi

d it in the candle flame, and the

rlets bore an impress as if somebody had lain on them. Oleron could not remember that he himself had lain down during the day-off-hand, he would have said that certainly he had not; but after all he could not be positive. His indignation for Elsie, acting poss