"I--perhaps I ought not to have asked for it to-day," he said, nervously. "I'm not a business man, and I didn't think of it. I came in because I saw you. I'm going to London to-morrow, and shall not be back for a week." "That's all right," said Haworth. "Come then." He was not sorry to see his visitor turn away, after uttering a few simple words of thanks. It would be a relief to see the door close after him. But when it had closed, to his discomfiture it opened again. The thin, poorly clad figure reappeared. "I heard in the town," said the man, his cheek flushing faintly, "of what has happened here to-day. Twenty years have brought you better luck than thirty have brought me." "Yes," answered Haworth, "my luck's been good enough, as luck goes." "It seems almost a folly"--falling into the meditative tone--"for _me_ to wish you good luck in the future." And then, pulling himself together again as before: "it is a folly; but I wish it, nevertheless. Good luck to you!" The door closed, and he was gone. CHAPTER II. THIRTY YEARS. A little later there stood at a window, in one of the cheapest of the respectable streets, a woman whom the neighbors had become used to seeing there. She was a small person, with a repressed and watchful look in her eyes, and she was noticeable, also, to the Lancashire mind, for a certain slightly foreign air, not easily described. It was in consequence of inquiries made concerning this foreign air, that the rumor had arisen that she was a "'Merican," and it was possibly a result of this rumor that she was regarded by the inhabitants of the street with a curiosity not unmingled with awe. "Aye," said one honest matron. "Hoo's a 'Merican, fur my mester heerd it fro' th' landlord. Eh! I would like to ax her summat about th' Blacks an' th' Indians." But it was not easy to attain the degree of familiarity warranting the broaching of subjects so delicate and truly "'Merican." The stranger and her husband lived a simple and secluded life. It was said the woman had never been known to go out; it seemed her place to stand or sit at the window and watch for the man when he left the house on one of his mysterious errands in company with the wooden case he carried by its iron handle. This morning she waited as usual, though the case had not gone out,--rather to the disappointment of those interested, whose conjectures concerning its contents were varied and ingenious. When, at last, the tall, stooping figure turned the corner, she went to the door and stood in readiness to greet its crossing the threshold. Stephen Murdoch looked down at her with a kindly, absent smile. "Thank you, Kitty," he said. "You are always here, my dear." There was a narrow, hard, horse-hair sofa in the small room into which they passed, and he went to it and lay down upon it, panting a little in an exhausted way, a hectic red showing itself on his hollow cheeks. "Everything is ready, Kitty?" he said at last. "Yes, all ready."