Weeks passed away. As he could find no tidings of her he was getting downhearted, and was almost giving up the search, when, as he was passing along Brunswick Street, an interesting, youthful girl came out of a shop, and walked on before him. Something about her attracted his attention, and he followed her. She was evidently a servant. Suddenly she stopped at the gate of a respectable house, and turned her face towards him. Her eyes flashed across his bows, revealing the object he was in search of, as a harbour light reveals the port. It was his Mary!
He was not quite so sure the next moment, for her face underwent a change. The temporary brightness had disappeared; the lights were out, and a hopeless sorrow seemed to rest upon it. There was no feature he could identify. He stood bewildered, and then she was gone. He was conscious of a closing door.
"I was a fool!" he said. "Why didn't I ask her if her name was Mary, and settle the matter off-hand, receipt the account, and think no more about it. At the first glance I could have sworn she was Mary; at the next she seemed to have retired behind a veil, and was not the same—only a pretty girl with a melancholy cast of countenance. My imagination is playing tricks."
His hands shook, and his knees trembled. He supported himself by the railings in front of the house. Looking up, he saw a policeman eyeing him with suspicion, so he walked away to avoid being made a gazing-stock.
When he got to the end of the block, he upbraided himself for not making inquiries at the house into which the girl entered. He went back, and stood at the railings, taking a mental inventory of the house from the sky line to the earth line. A notice in the window, that board and residence might be had within, gave him an idea. He had thought of changing his lodgings, so he would knock at the door and make inquiries.
He rapped, and a servant came. He had expected that the other girl would appear, and flash her eyes at him as before.
"I came to make inquiries about board and residence," he stammered.
"I'll call Mrs. Blenners; walk in, sir."
He walked in, and Mrs. Blenners walked in behind him. She had seen him from the window, and was ready, like a tug steamer, to take him in tow, and bring him to good anchorage, with room to swing between the front parlour and the best bedroom, where he might spend his days in comfort and his nights in peace.
He looked at the best bedroom, and inspected the front parlour. He liked them; then hummed and hesitated, and had a question on the tip of his tongue about the girl he had followed, but drew it back just in time, as he reflected that so prim and well-starched a lady as Mrs. Blenners would extinguish him as she would a candle, and leave him in the dark—then farewell to further inquiry in this quarter.