CHAPTER II.

HE'S HERE AGAIN!


"He has but stumbled in the path
Thou hast in weakness trod."--A. A. PROCTER.

"He's here again, Mum."

He was there at the servant's entrance to the highly respectable
boarding-house in the Rue Millevoye. It was five in the morning--a
winter's morning.

Mrs. Rowe hastened from her room, behind the business parlour, in her
dressing-gown, her teeth chattering, and her eyes flashing the fire of
hate. The boarders sleeping upstairs would not have known the godly
landlady, who glided about the house by day, rubbing her hands and
hoping every soul under her roof was comfortable--or would at once
complain to her, who lived only to make people comfortable--bills being
but mere accidental accessories, fortuitously concurrent with the
arrival of a cab and the descent of luggage.

"At the back door, mum, with his coat tucked over his ears, and such a
cold in his head. Shall I show him in?"

"My life is a long misery, Jane," Mrs. Rowe said, under her voice.