"Sit down," said Devlin, "I expected you." There was only one other chair in the room besides the one he occupied, and I accepted his invitation, and drew it up to the table. And there we sat gazing at each other for what appeared to me a long time in silence. The room was very poorly furnished. There were the two chairs, a small deal table, and a single iron bedstead in the corner. Off the room was a kind of closet, in which I supposed were a washstand and fittings. There was only one other article in view in addition to those I have mentioned, and that was a desk at which Devlin was writing.[1] He did not put away his papers, and I was enabled to observe, without undue prying, that his writing was very fine and very close. How shall I describe him? A casual observation of his face and figure would not suffice for the detection of anything uncanny about him, but it must be remembered that I was abnormally excited, and most strangely interested in him. He was tall and dark, his face was long and spare; his forehead was low; his eyes were black, with an extraordinary brilliancy in them; his mouth was large, and his lips thin. He wore a moustache, but no beard. In the order and importance of the impressions they produced upon me I should place first, his black eyes with their extraordinary brilliancy, and next, his hands, which were unusually small and white. They were the hands of a lady of gentle culture rather than those of a man in the class of life to which Devlin appeared to belong. Not alone was his social standing presumably fixed by the fact of his living in a room so poorly furnished at the top of a house so common as Mr. Lemon's, but his clothes were a special indication. They were shabby and worn; black frock-coat, black trousers and waistcoat, narrow black tie. Not a vestige of colour about them, and no sign of jewellery of any kind. "Well?" he said. I started. I had been so absorbed in my observance of him that I, who should have been the first to plunge into the conversation, had remained silent for a time so unreasonably long that the man upon whom I had intruded might have justly taken offence. "I beg your pardon," I said; "did you not remark that you expected me?" "Yes." "May I inquire upon what grounds your expectation was based?" He smiled; and here I observed, in the quality of this smile, a characteristic of which Mrs. Lemon had given me no indication. Devlin was evidently gifted with a touch of humour.