“But one, dear Ada.” “That will be easily supported,” said Ada, with a grateful smile. “Oh, let us go at once.” They rose from the Park seat, and the young lovers, arm-in-arm, walked down the Great Mall. “Are you sure you know the way, Ada?” said Albert, anxiously. “If I saw the bridge again, I could find it, I know, although I might not discover the most direct route, Albert.” Thus affectionately, and dreaming of future happiness, which, alas! was still not close at hand, the young guileless beings pursued their course to the old house at Lambeth. CHAPTER XXX. Jacob’s Return Home.—An Unexpected Visitor.—The Lonely Watch. When Gray left the public-house in which lay the body of the murdered waterman, he took a rapid route by the edge of the river to his own gloomy home, and very soon reached the cluster of condemned houses, in one of which he resided. Looking very cautiously around him, as was his invariable custom before gliding into his abode, to see if any one was observing him, he took a key from his pocket, and, opening the frail door, quickly entered the passage. Then applying his eye to the window, through which he had reconnoitred Britton and Learmont, he took a long look up and down the street to see if he could detect the form of Ada lurking in any of the doorways, awaiting his return. “She is not here,” he muttered. “Well, she knows nothing—can guess nothing, or, what little she does know or guess, she dares not utter to human ears, for she will be tormented by the supposition that I may be her father. Let her die in the streets—let her rot, so she trouble not me; and yet I wonder she has not returned. She must have lost her way.” Gray then opened the door again, and wiped off the words he had written, then, carefully closing it, he had ascended about half way up the creaking staircase, when his ears were suddenly saluted by a noise that made him tremble, and convulsively clutch the crazy banisters for support. The noise was of quite a new character to Jacob Gray, and he could not divine how or in what manner it could possibly be produced. It was not a walking, it was not a fighting or a struggling—a dancing; but it was a singular and wonderful admixture of them all. Then there would be a shuffling scramble across the floor, then a hop, step, and a jump, apparently, which would be followed by a continued bumping that threatened the existence of the crazy house, and shook it to the very foundation. The perspiration of intense fear broke out upon the aching forehead of Jacob Gray, and he sat down melancholy upon the stairs, to try to think what could be the cause of the singular uproar in his commonly so lonely dwelling. Suddenly the noise approached the stair-head, and it assumed the form of the pattering of naked feet, accompanied by the heavy tread of some one in clumsy shoes.