Joan went straight from Cornwall to London and the Bloomsbury boarding-house in which some of her curiously earned money was invested. All was to begin over again now; but to the girl this idea brought inspiration rather than discouragement, for the world was still her oyster, if she could open it, and experience had already taught her some dexterity in the use of the knife. At this house in Woburn Place she had the right to live without paying, while she "looked round," and Miss Witt, who owed her present position to Joan, was only too delighted to welcome her benefactress. The place was doing well, and the corner of difficulty had been turned; this was the news the manager-housekeeper had to give Joan. Every room but one was full, and so far the boarders seemed to be "good pay," with perhaps a single exception. "There’s only the little top floor back that’s empty," cheerfully went on Miss Witt. "Of course, I will take that and give you mine." "You’ll do nothing of the sort, my dear woman," said Joan. "I like running up and down stairs. It does me good. Besides, I’d rather be at the back. There’s a tree, or something that once tried hard to be a tree, to look at, as I know well, for the room used to be mine; so there’s no use talking any more about that matter--it’s settled. You stay where you are, and I will rise, like cream, to the top. Now tell me about this doubtful person you are afraid won’t pay. Is it a man or a woman?" "A woman," replied Miss Witt, "and one of the strangest beings I ever saw. It is a great comfort to me that you are here, miss, for you can decide what is to be done about her. She hasn’t paid her board for a fortnight, but she keeps pleading that as soon as she is well, and can go out, she will get remittances which have been delayed." "Oh, she is ill, then?" "So she says. But I’m not sure, miss, it isn’t just an excuse to work upon my compassion, for why should she have to go out for remittances? She stops in her room, lying upon a sofa, and makes a deal of bother with her meals being carried up so many pairs of stairs, though it’s hardly worth while her having them at all, she eats so little. Yet she doesn’t look a bit different from what she did when she was supposed to be well and going about as much like anybody else as one of her sort could _ever_ do." "What do you mean?" asked Joan, whose curiosity was fired. "Only that she is, and was, more a ghost than a human being, with her great, hollow, black eyes, like burning coals, set deep under her thick eyebrows and overhanging forehead; with her thin cheeks--why, miss, they almost meet in the middle--her yellow-white skin, her tall, gliding figure and stealthy way of walking, so that you never hear a sound till she’s at your back." "Queer kind of boarder," commented Joan.