This arid plain, which had erst been pleasant meadow-land, and where the shorn remnant of a once-beauteous hawthorn hedge still languished here and there under a cloud of lime dust, was the nearest approach to a rustic landscape within reach of the Shadrackites. Its beauty did not tempt the pedestrian. Lucius halted at sight of the skeleton houses, and having in some measure walked down his excitement, turned back. He did not, however, take exactly the same way by which he had come. The prospect of the Shadrack-road, in all its dreary length, may have appalled him, or it may have been mere vagrant fancy which led him to return by a long narrow street, straggling and poverty-stricken, yet boasting here and there some good old red-brick mansion, which had once been the country seat of a prosperous City merchant, but which now, shorn of its garden, and defaced by neglect and decay, was let off in divers tenements to the struggling poor. This street, with all its byways, was familiar to Lucius, who had plenty of patients in those squalid houses, down those narrow side streets, courts, and alleys. He knew every turn of the place, and wandered on to-night, not troubling himself which way he went, so long as he kept in a general manner the homeward direction. It had struck twelve when he emerged from a darksome alley on to the wharf which formed one side of the narrow creek whereon Mr. Sivewright’s garden abutted. There were the dingy barges moored side by side upon the stagnant water; and there above them, dark against the sky, loomed the outline of the house that sheltered all Lucius Davoren most fondly loved. He had wandered to this spot almost unawares. ‘I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me—who knows how? To thy chamber-window, sweet!’ murmured the lover, as he looked up at those blank windows. There was a faint light in one, the little dressing-room next Mr. Sivewright’s bedchamber, the room now occupied by Lucille. Yes, and there was one more light—the yellow flame of a candle in one of the upper windows, a window in that topmost story, which Lucille had declared to be utterly uninhabited. The sight struck Lucius with a vague suspicion—a feeling almost of alarm. How should there be a light up yonder in one of those unoccupied rooms? Could it be Jacob Wincher, prowling about after midnight, to inspect the treasures of which he was guardian. It was just possible there might be some part of the bric-à-brac merchant’s collection in one of those upper rooms. Yet Lucille had declared that they were quite empty—and his own inspection through the keyholes had revealed nothing worth speaking of within. And again, how foreign to Jacob Wincher’s orderly habits to be roaming about with a candle at such an hour! The gleam of that solitary candle amidst all those dark upper windows mystified Lucius beyond measure.