required. He had loved her after his fashion for
so long that he was rather surprised by his own
constancy; but it would have been difficult for
Stewart Routh to go on loving any one but
himself always, and Harriet was so much
superior to him in strength, firmness, and
disinterestedness, that her very superiority was an
element of destruction for the love of such a
man as he.

In all that concerned the business of Stewart
Routh's life, Harriet's conduct was still the
same as before—she was still industrious and
invaluable to him. But the occupations which
had filled her leisure hours were all neglected
now, the lonely time was no more lightened by
the pursuits which her early education and her
natural tastes had endeared and rendered habitual
to her. One of two moods now possessed
her, either uncontrollable restlessness or
absorbed brooding. She would start off, when
Routh had left her, and walk for hours through
the crowded thoroughfares, out into the
suburbs of London, or up and down the most
distant and least-frequented parts of the
Parks, returning home weary and footsore,
but with the torturing sense of restlessness
unsubdued. Or, when she was alone, she would
sit for hours, not in a selected position of
comfort, but anywhere, on the first seat that came
in her way, her head drooping, her eyes fixed
and vacant, her hands closely clasped and lying
in her lap, her fair low brow contracted by a
stern and painful frown. From either of these
two moods she rarely varied; and even in
Routh's presence, one or the other would master
her at times. It chanced that on the day when
Jim Swain had seen Routh return to his lodgings,
and take some letters from the postman,
the restless fit had come very strongly upon
Harriet, and she had gone to her room to dress
herself for walking, when Routh unexpectedly
returned. He went into the sitting-room, and
concluding she would be down-stairs presently,
waited for her, reading the letters in his hand
frowningly the while. But Harriet had passed
quietly down the stairs and gone out, without
re-entering the sitting-room, and Routh waited
in vain. At length he sought her in her room,
and not finding her, he angrily rang the bell,
and asked the servant if she knew anything
about her. She did not, and Routh dismissed
her, and began to stride about the room, uttering
very uncalled-for objurgations on women
who were never in the way when they were
wanted. As he passed the window, his eye fell
upon Jim Swain tranquilly eating bread and
cheese, as he leaned against the opposite railings.
Routh looked at him again more closely,
and again; finally, he took up his hat, went
down-stairs, out of the door, and across the
street, close up to the boy.

"Hollo, you sir!" he addressed him roughly.
"What are you doing here?"

Mr. James Swain eyed his questioner with
no pleasant or grateful expression of countenance,
and replied, curtly:

"Nothin'!"

"What brings you here, then?" continued
Routh.

"I ain't a doin' you any harm, am I?"
answered the boy, all his native impudence
brought out in a moment by the overbearing
manner of Routh. "It ain't your street, I
believe, nor yet your archway, as I knows on;
and if I chooses to odd job on this here lay, I
don't hurt you, do I?"

The saucy manner of the lad did not anger
Routh; he hardly seemed to notice it, but
appeared to be entirely possessed by some
struggling remembrance not of a pleasing kind,
if his expression afforded any correct clue
to it.

"Have you seen a lady come out of No. 60
since you have been about here?" he asked,
passing by the boy's saucy remarks as if he
had not heard them.

"Yes, I have. I saw the lady as lives
there, not two minutes after you came in. She
went that way." And he pointed down the
street.

"Had she anything in her hand? Did she
look as if she was going for a walk, or out
shopping?"

"She hadn't no basket or bag, and she warn't
partickler dressed; not as nice as she's dressed
sometimes. I shouId say," continued Mr. Jim
Swain, with an air of wisdom and decision, "as
she was goin' for a constitootional, all by
herself, and not to shop nor nothin'."

Routh's attention had wandered from the
boy's words and was fixed upon his face.

"Have I ever seen you before?" he asked
him, abruptly.

A sudden rush of colour dyed Mr. James
Swain's face, even through the varnish of dirt
which hid its surface, as he replied, with a
little less than his customary boldness:

"Yes, sir, you've seen me, though in course
you ain't likely to remember it. You've giv'
me many a penny, and a sixpence too, and the
lady."

Again Routh looked steadily, but covertly, at
him under his thick brows. He was evidently
eager to ask him some question, but he
refrained, restrained by some powerful motive.
Jim looked uneasily up and down the street,
moved his feet about restlessly, turned his
ragged pockets inside out, letting loose a
multitude of dirty crumbs, and displayed a fidgety
inclination to get away from South Molton-
street.

"Well," said Routh, rousing himself from,
his abstraction, "we're going to move next
week, and you can come and do the odd jobs
for us, if you like."

"Thankee, sir," said Jim, who was very
respectful now, and touched his ragged cap as if
he had quite altered his opinion of the speaker.
"What day shall I come, sir?"

"I don't exactly know," said Routh; "you
can call and ask the lady." And then he gave
the lad a shilling, to Jim Swain's intense
surprise, and, crossing the street, once more let
himself in at the door of No. 60. Having