Perplexed, he lingered upon the stoop until she had turned the corner; after which he let himself in with a latch-key, and, dismissing the affair temporarily from his thoughts, or pretending to do so, ascended the single flight of stairs to his flat. Simultaneously heavy feet were to be heard clumping up the basement steps; and surmising that the janitor was coming to light the hall, the young man waited, leaning over the balusters. His guess proving correct, he called down: "O'Hagan? Is that you?" "Th' saints presarve us! But 'twas yersilf gave me th' sthart, Misther Maitland, sor!" O'Hagan paused in the gloom below, his upturned face quaintly illuminated by the flame of a wax taper in his gaslighter. "I'm dining in town to-night, O'Hagan, and dropped around to dress. Is anybody else at home?" "Nivver a wan, sor. Shure, th' house do be quiet's anny tomb--" "Then who was that lady, O'Hagan?" "Leddy, sor?"--in unbounded amazement. "Yes," impatiently. "A young woman left the house just as I was coming in. Who was she?" "Shure an' I think ye must be dr'amin', sor. Divvle a female--rayspicts to ye!--has been in this house for manny an' manny th' wake, sor." "But, I tell you--" "Belike 'twas somewan jist sthepped into the vesthibule, mebbe to tie her shoe, sor, and ye thought--" "Oh, very well." Maitland relinquished the inquisition as unprofitable, willing to concede O'Hagan's theory a reasonable one, the more readily since he himself could by no means have sworn that the woman had actually come out through the door. Such had merely been his impression, honest enough, but founded on circumstantial evidence. "When you're through, O'Hagan," he told the Irishman, "you may come and shave me and lay out my things, if you will." "Very good, sor. In wan minute." But O'Hagan's conception of the passage of time was a thought vague: his one minute had lengthened into ten before he appeared to wait upon his employer. Now and again, in the absence of the regular "man," O'Hagan would attend one or another of the tenants in the capacity of substitute valet: as in the present instance, when Maitland, having left his host's roof without troubling even to notify his body-servant that he would not return that night, called upon the janitor to understudy the more trained employee; which O'Hagan could be counted upon to do very acceptably.