Edgar stayed, chiefly, I fear, out of mere listlessness, and took his place in the corner by the door allotted to Philistines of the male gender, with much submission and docility. The little chapel was very richly decorated, the light intercepted by small painted windows, the walls one mass of mural ornament. He compared it in his imagination, with a smile, to the bare little convent chapels he had seen and heard of in countries where the institution appeared more natural. Here there was a profusion of ecclesiastical luxury, an absolute parade of decoration. It struck him with a double sense of incongruity, but there was no one to whom he could express this evil sentiment: Sister Susan did not appear again as he had hoped, and he wended his way back to town with some additional information, which he had not possessed when he left. Why should he be so curious about Miss ----, the nameless one? He had thought her another Sister, and entertained no profuse curiosity in respect to her at first; but now it seemed to him that only a little more light might make her visible to him. There was no reason why he should find her out, or why he should wish to do so; but great is the perversity of human nature--perhaps this was the special reason why the thought occupied him so much. It was very strange to so friendly a soul to have no friends whom he could go to, whom he could talk to, no friendly house where the door would open to him, and faces smile at his sight. It is true that for three years he had been severed, to a great degree, from domestic pleasures, which do not thrive at foreign centres of cosmopolitan resort--but yet he had never been without a large circle of acquaintances, and had occasionally seen the old friends of his boyhood here and there; but in London, in October and November, whom could he expect to see? The stray man who dropped in now and then at the club, was on the wing between two country houses, or was going to join a party somewhere, or home to his people. Some men, of course, must live in London, but these men, I presume, did not go much to their club, or else they were so little among the number of Edgar’s friends that they did not count. Now and then one would join him at dinner, or in one of the long walks he took, and he made a friend or two at the Museum, among the books and prints. But he was like an Australian emigrant, or other exile in savage places. These were all men, and he never saw the face of a woman except in the streets or shops, unless it was his landlady, who did not interest him.