Amelius returned to his sofa, and fell into a broken slumber. The hours of the night passed. The sad light of the November morning dawned mistily through the uncurtained window, and woke him. He started up, and looked at the bedroom door. “Now what is to be done?” That was his first thought, on waking: he was beginning to feel his responsibilities at last. CHAPTER 2 The landlady of the lodgings decided what was to be done. “You will be so good, sir, as to leave my apartments immediately,” she said to Amelius. “I make no claim to the week’s rent, in consideration of the short notice. This is a respectable house, and it shall be kept respectable at any sacrifice.” Amelius explained and protested; he appealed to the landlady’s sense of justice and sense of duty, as a Christian woman. The reasoning which would have been irresistible at Tadmor was reasoning completely thrown away in London. The landlady remained as impenetrable as the Egyptian Sphinx. “If that creature in the bedroom is not out of my house in an hour’s time, I shall send for the police.” Having answered her lodger’s arguments in those terms, she left the room, and banged the door after her. “Thank you, sir, for being so kind to me. I’ll go away directly--and then, perhaps, the lady will forgive you.” Amelius looked round. Simple Sally had heard it all. She was dressed in her wretched clothes, and was standing at the open bedroom door, crying, “Wait a little,” said Amelius, wiping her eyes with his own handkerchief; “and we will go away together. I want to get you some better clothes; and I don’t exactly know how to set about it. Don’t cry, my dear--don’t cry.” The deaf maid-of-all-work came in, as he spoke. She too was in tears. Amelius had been good to her, in many little ways--and she was the guilty person who had led to the discovery in the bedroom. “If you had only told me, sir,” she said pentitently, “I’d have kep’ it secret. But, there, I went in with your ‘ot water, as usual, and, O Lor’, I was that startled I dropped the jug, and run downstairs again--!” Amelius stopped the further progress of the apology. “I don’t blame you, Maria,” he said; “I’m in a difficulty. Help me out of it; and you will do me a kindness.”