Who _was_ he? As Mrs. Parrot made a point of avoiding him, he could not very well question her about her lodger; but since she was the only person in Hanwitch who was likely to know anything about him, he got one of her tradesmen to cross-examine her. But this _ruse_ resulted in little. All that Mrs. Parrot could tell was, that her lodger’s name was Hampden, that he was a gentleman with rather queer habits, and that he seemed to have lots of money. It was something to find out that he had lots of money. On the strength of this Mr. Conway suddenly discovered Nelly to be a very interesting child, and never seemed more pleased than when she was over the way at Mrs. Parrot’s. The fact was, the dentist had an idea. It was a small, contemptible, tricky idea, such as poverty and drink would beget between them. He kept it to himself and waited. Dolly, of course, was deeply gratified by Mr. Hampden’s affection for her child. At first her curiosity had been morbidly excited by this stranger. Something there had been in his voice which stirred memory to its centre: and the strange, baffling, elusive thoughts it had induced kept her spiritless and nervous for some days after the interview between them. Twice she dreamed of the husband she believed dead. The dream, in both instances, was perplexed, and left no determinable impression; but its iteration increased her melancholy, and made memory painful and importunate. She accounted for her feelings by referring them to the recollections which had been abruptly renewed--dragged, so to say, from the grave in which they lay hidden; and this clue being put into her hand, left her easy as to the _raison d’être_ of her depression. Indeed, no suspicion of this stranger’s identity with Holdsworth could have entered her mind without being instantly followed by conviction. The thought never occurred to her: how _could_ it? She believed him dead, and the permanent habit of this belief took the quality of established proof of his death. But even if she had doubted his death; if ever she had cherished the hope that he would one day return to her--a hope that she had held to passionately for awhile, but which had dropped dead out of her heart when she gave her hand to Mr. Conway--no memory that she had of him would admit the possibility of the change that had been wrought in him. There was a sign to be made--a look, a smile, a whisper--which would flash perception into her, knit into compact form the thoughts which his voice had troubled, and confess him her HUSBAND, though hollow-faced and wan; though stricken as with age; though presenting the ineffaceable memorials of grievous torture. But, until this sign should be made, he must be a stranger to her; a puzzle, perhaps; a man of eccentric habits, and of an odd and striking aspect--but not her husband.