She and Miss Latimer and Tom went downstairs together, Tom being an incalculable blessing in such circumstances. The invader was intoxicated, not hurt, as Lucy at first suggested, to the policeman’s great amusement. “He’s not been so bad when he was so spry getting over; he thought he’d got a nice corner to sleep himself square in,” said that functionary, as, with Tom’s disgusted assistance, he pulled the man nearer the wall and tried to make him “sit up.” Horrors! Where did Lucy know the smooth white face and red head thus revealed to view? Why, this was no other than the carpenter whom she had accredited as Jane Smith’s lawful “young man.” “You come out of this, my man,” said the policeman. “You’re where you’ve no call to be. And if you don’t stir your stumps pretty quick, it’ll be the worse for you.” The man had nearly “slept himself square.” He stared wildly around, and muttered something about “coming to visit one as had called herself a friend”—“a-wanting to give her a bit of his mind.” “Take him away and let him go,” Lucy pleaded with the policeman. “I know who he is—he’s been employed at Shand’s works—he used to visit a servant of mine who is not with me now. I don’t think she behaved very well to him.” The policeman looked up knowingly. “Is it that there woman that lives——” he paused, with a significant glance towards the closed windows of the Marvels’ house. “A bad lot she is. She behaves best to any fellow she treats badly. Come, come, young man, as the lady speaks for you, I’ll let you go this time. Your young ’ooman ain’t here now, d’ye understand? And if you take my advice, you’ll give her a wide berth, wherever she may be.” The wretched youth rose, picking up his cap, and dashing it against the iron balustrade to beat off the dust. “Thank you kindly, mum,” he mumbled thickly. “I begs your pardon. I did not know she’d left here. I on’y knew she gave me the go-by directly my back was turned, a-earnin’ money to make a home for her.” “Well, well,” rejoined the policeman, pushing the shambling figure before him. “You be thankful she did give you the go-by, though you don’t deserve a better woman, if you ain’t more of a man than to let the likes of her get you into the mess you’re in to-night—or this morning, rather,” he added, looking up at the whitening sky. “Good day, mum, I’m sorry I had to disturb you.” On their way back to their rooms, they met Clementina, who had been aroused by the movements within the house. Clementina, as she herself expressed it, “was trembling so that one could knock her down with a feather.” She had not descended below the first floor. Her breathless question was— “Is he dead? Has it been a murder?”