Nothing, however, had prepared him for Janet’s extraordinary revelations and for the discovery more extraordinary still which he had himself made. It was this which he turned over in his mind, viewing it from every side, considering it in every possible light, as he walked briskly along the long line of silent streets. It seemed a thing almost incredible that an unsuspecting family could have a man hidden in their house with such elaborate precautions, shut up in rooms which were given out to be uninhabitable, yet surrounded with comforts, kept from all air and vision yet manifestly cared for--a mystery in the midst of the commonest matter-of-fact details of life. The face which he had seen, though but for a moment, communicated no idea to Meredith’s mind. It was not like anyone whom he had ever seen before. The long white hair, the long pallid countenance, was more like those of a hermit in the desert than of a dweller in an ordinary English house. The eagerness with which the young man had followed up the mystery had fallen somewhat blank when he got to the climax and saw the cause of all. The thread which he had seemed to hold in his hand broke off short. He had not known or been able to imagine to what it might lead, yet had associated it somehow with the story of the family, and expected it to throw some light upon that. But the light he had been hoping for seemed suddenly to go out as he gazed through the curtains at this strange old man. Who was he? What connection could he have with the family in whose house he was hidden? Was it Vicars who was responsible--Vicars, who was the representative of mystery in the house--the old servant who was no longer a servant? Could this be some private undertaking of his own of which not even Mrs. Harwood was aware? But when Meredith thought of the curtains, the softly-moving noiseless spring doors, all left, no doubt, that Vicars at a moment’s warning might rush back to his patient, or his prisoner, or his victim--which was it? he was again stopped suddenly as by a blank wall of impossibility. Vicars could not have fitted up the rooms with all those elaborate precautions. He could not without Mrs. Harwood’s knowledge have arranged everything for secrecy and at the same time for comfort in that way. Was it then some one whom Mrs. Harwood was hiding? But whom? But whom?