The big man paused. His listener was surprised to find how much his visitor's curious earnestness impressed him. "I had hard times of it at first. Now and then I heard from her. At last her letters ceased. About the time her letters ceased, my prospects bettered. Now I'm doing pretty well. So I've come to take her back with me to the other side. Mr. Bodenham, I've looked for her everywhere. As they say, high and low. I've been to her old home, and to mine--I've been just everywhere. But no one seems to know anything about her. She has just clean gone, vanished out of sight. I was thinking that I should have to go back, after all, without her, when I saw your picture in the Academy, and I knew the girl you had painted was Nelly. So I bought your picture--her picture. And now I want you to tell me where she lives." There was a momentary silence when the big man finished. "Yours is a very romantic story, Mr. Gibbs. Since you have done me the honour to make of me your confidant, I shall have pleasure in giving you the address of the original of my little picture--the address, that is, at which I last heard of her. I have reason to believe that her address is not infrequently changed. When I last heard of her, she was--what shall I say?--hard up." "Hard up, was she? Was she very hard up, Mr. Bodenham?" "I'm afraid, Mr. Gibbs, that she was as hard up as she could be--and live." Mr. Gibbs cleared his throat: "Thank you. Will you give me her address, Mr. Bodenham?" Mr. Bodenham wrote something on a slip of paper. "There it is. It is a street behind Chelsea Hospital--about as unsavoury a neighbourhood as you will easily find." Mr. Gibbs found that the artist's words were justified by facts--it was an unsavoury neighbourhood into which the cabman found his way. No. 20 was the number which Mr. Bodenham had given him. The door of No. 20 stood wide open. Mr. Gibbs knocked with his stick. A dirty woman appeared from a room on the left. "Does Miss Brock live here?" "Never heard tell of no such name. Unless it's the young woman what lives at the top of the 'ouse--third floor back. Perhaps it's her you want. Is it a model that you're after? Because, that's what she is--leastways I've heard 'em saying so. Top o' the stairs, first door to your left." Mr. Gibbs started to ascend. "Take care of them stairs," cried the woman after him. "They wants knowing." Mr. Gibbs found that what the woman said was true--they did want knowing. Better light, too would have been an assistant to a better knowledge. He had to strike a match to enable him to ascertain if he had reached the top. A squalid top it was--it smelt! By the light of the flickering match he perceived that there was a door upon his left. He knocked. A voice cried to him, for the second time that day: "Come in!"