“Well, sir, that was Jane’s first and last visit. She got married all of a sudden before Lady-day, and she went to live in the country, where her husband was postman in her native village, and I never see no more of her. I went to Camberwell Grove again in the Long Vacation, when I knew Mr. Dalbrook was away, but I found only an old woman in the house as caretaker, stone deaf, and disagreeable into the bargain. Mr. Dalbrook moved into King’s Bench Walk the following year, and less than six months after that I saw his marriage in the papers; and his clerk told me he had married a very rich young lady, and was going to buy an estate in the country. I went to have another look at the cottage soon after Mr. Dalbrook’s marriage, and I found the garden-gate locked, and a board up to say that the house was to be let unfurnished; and that, sir, is all I could ever find out about the lady called Mrs. Danvers.” “And this history of the home in Camberwell Grove is all you ever knew about Mr. James Dalbrook’s life outside the chambers in Ferret Court.” “Yes, sir, that is all I ever heard, promiscuously or otherwise.” “Well, Mrs. Dugget, you have been frank with me, and you have earned my little present,” said Theodore, handing her the two notes, which her old fingers touched tremulously in a rapture that was too much for words. It was with an effort that she faltered out her thanks for his generosity, which, she protested, she had never “looked for.” Theodore walked back towards the Temple deep in thought; indeed so troubled and perplexed were his thoughts that upon approaching Ferret Court he stopped short, and instead of going straight to his chambers, turned aside and went to the Gardens, where he walked up and down the same gravel path for an hour, pondering upon that picture of the hidden home in Camberwell Grove, conjured up before him by the loquacious laundress. Yes, he could imagine that obscure existence almost as if he had seen it with his bodily eyes. He could fancy the solitary home where never kinsman or familiar friend crossed the threshold; a home destitute of all home ties and homely associations; a home never smiled upon by the parson of the parish; cut off from all local interests, identified with nothing, a mystery among the commonplace dwellings around and about it; a subject for furtive observation from the neighbours. He could fancy those two lonely lives preying upon each other, too closely united for peaceful union; the woman too utterly dependent upon the man; she feeling her dependence a degradation; he feeling her helplessness a burden. He could picture them, loving each other, perhaps, passionately, jealously to the last, and yet weary of each other, worn out and weighed down by the narrowness of a life walled off from the rest of the world and all its changeful interests and widening sympathies. And then he saw the picture in still darker colours, as it might have been ere that unknown figure faded from the canvas.