When the exigencies of a story require that two parts of it should be related at once, the difficulty is, which to take first; or rather which may be delayed with the least inconvenience: and very often, as is the case with other things in life we choose the wrong.

Mrs. Jones sat in her parlour at the twilight hour and a very dark twilight, too, but light enough for the employment she was so busy over--knitting. Not woollen socks this time, but some complicated affair of silk, more profitable than the stockings. Roland Yorke had just started on that visit, already told of, to Gerald\'s chambers, after enjoying a sumptuous tea and toasted muffin in Mrs. Jones\'s parlour, where, for the sake of company, his meals were sometimes taken. Miss Rye was out at work; Mr. Ollivera had an evening service; and so the house was quiet, and Mrs. Jones at leisure to pursue her occupation.

Not for very long. A double knock at the street door gave forth its echoes, and the servant-maid came in, after answering it.

"A gentleman wants to know if there\'s not a room to let here, ma\'am."

Mrs. Jones looked up as if she meant to snap the girl\'s nose off. "How should he know any room\'s to let? There\'s no bill up."

"I\'ve asked him into Mr. Yorke\'s parlour," said the girl, aware that it was worse than profitless to contend with her mistress. "He has got spectacles on, and he says his name\'s Mr. Brown."

Mrs. Jones shook out her gown and went to the visitor: a tall gentleman with those slightly-stained glasses on that are called smoke coloured. He generally took them off indoors, wearing them in the street to protect his eyes from the sun, but on this occasion he kept them on. It was the Mr. Brown who belonged to the house of Greatorex and Greatorex; Mrs. Jones had heard his name, but did not know him personally and he had to introduce himself as well as his business.

Mr. Roland Yorke, in his confidential communications to Josiah Hurst and the office generally, touching other people\'s concerns as well as his own--for gossiping, as an agreeable interlude to his hard work, still held its sway over Roland--had told of the departure of the scripture reader for another district, and the vacancy, in consequence, in Mrs. Jones\'s household. Mr. Brown, listening to all this, but saying nothing, had come to the conclusion that the room might suit himself; hence his visit tonight. He related these particulars quite candidly, and asked to see the room if it were not already let. He should give very little trouble, he said, took nothing at home but his breakfast and tea, and had his boots cleaned out of doors.

Mrs. Jones marshalled him to the room: the back-parlour, as the reader may remember: and the bargain was concluded at once, without a dissentient voice on the stranger\'s part. Mrs. Jones remembered afterwards that when she held the candle aloft for him to see its proportions and furniture, he scarcely gave a single glance before saying it would do, and laid the first week\'s rent down in lieu of references.

"Who asked for references?" tartly demanded Mrs. Jones, not a whit more courteous to him, her lodger in prospective, than she was to others. "Time enough to speak of references when you\'re told they\'re wanted. Little Jenner has often talked of you. Take up the money, if you please."

"But I prefer to pay my rent in advance," said Mr. Brown. "It has been my custom to do so where I am."

He spoke decisively, in a tone that admitted of no appeal, and Mrs. Jones caught up the money with a jerk and put it loose in her pocket. Saying he would let her know the time of his entrance, which might probably be on the following evening, he wished her goodnight, and departed: leaving an impression on his future landlady that his voice was in some way not altogether unfamiliar to her.

"I\'m not as \'cute in remembering faces as Alletha is," acknowledged Mrs. Jones to herself, while she watched him down the street from the front door, "but I\'ll back my ears against hers for voices any day. Not lately; I hardly think that; it\'s more like a remembrance of the far past. Still I don\'t remember his face. Heard him speak perhaps in some railway train; or----Goodness heart alive! Is it you?"

This sudden break was occasioned by the appearance of another gentleman, who seemed to have sprung from nowhere, until he halted close before her. It was the detective officer, Butterby: and Mrs. Jones had not seen him since she quitted her country home.

"I thought it looked like you," cried Mr. Butterby, giving his hand. "Says I to myself, as I strolled along, \'If that\'s not the exact image of my old friend, Mrs. Jones, it\'s uncommon like her. It is you, ma\'am! And how are you? So you are living in this quarter!"

Crafty man! Mrs. Jones had assuredly dealt him a box on the ear could she have divined that he was deceiving her. He had been watching her house for some minutes past, knowing just as well as she did that it was hers. Mrs. Jones invited him indoors, and he went under protest, not wishing, he said, to intrude: but the going indoors was what he intended doing all along.

They sat gossiping of old times and new. Mr. Butterby took a friendly glass of beer and a biscuit; Mrs. Jones, knitting always, took none. Without seeming to be at all anxious for the information, he had speedily gathered in every particular about Roland Yorke that there was to gather. Not too charitably disposed to the world in general, in speech at any rate, Mrs. Jones yet spoke well of Roland.

"He is no more like the proud, selfish aristocrat he used to be than chalk\'s like cheese," she said. "In his younger days Roland Yorke thought the world was made for him and his pleasure, no matter who else suffered: he doesn\'t think it now."

"Sowed his wild oats, has he?" remarked Mr. Butterby.

"For the matter of wild oats, I never knew he had any particular ones to sow," retorted Mrs. Jones. "Whether or not, he has got none left, that I can see."

"Wouldn\'t help himself to another twenty-pound note," said Mr. Butterby carelessly, stretching out his hand to take a second biscuit.

"No, that he would not," emphatically pronounced Mrs. Jones. "And I know this--that there never was an act repented of as he repents of that. His thoughts are but skin-deep; he\'s not crafty enough to hide them, and those that run may read. If cutting off his right hand would undo that past act, he\'d cut it off and be glad, Mr. Butterby."

"Shouldn\'t wonder," assented the officer. "Many folks is in the like case. Have you ever come across that Godfrey Pitman?"

"Not I. Have you?"

The officer shook his head. Godfrey Pitman had hitherto remained a dead failure.

"The man was disguised when he was at your house at Helstonleigh, Mrs. Jones, there\'s no doubt of that; and the fact has made detection difficult, you see."

The assumption as reflecting disparagement on her and her house, mortally offended Mrs. Jones. She treated Mr. Butterby to a taste of the old tongue he so well remembered, and saw him with the barest civility to the door on his departure. Miss Rye happened to be coming in at the time, and Mr. Butterby regarded her curiously with his green eyes in saluting her. Her face and lips turned white as ashes.

"What brings him here? she asked under her breath, when Mrs. Jones came back to her parlour from shutting the door.

"His pleasure, I suppose," was Mrs. Jones\'s answer, a great deal too much put out to say that he had come (as she supposed) accidentally. Disguised men lodging in her house, indeed! "What\'s the matter with you?"

Alletha Rye had sat down on the nearest chair, and seemed labouring to get her breath. The ghastly face, the signs............