HE'S HERE AGAIN!
"He has but stumbled in the path
Thou hast in weakness trod."—A. A. Procter
"He's here again, Mum."
He was there at the servant's entrance to the highly respectable boarding-house in the Rue Millevoye. It was five in the morning—a winter's morning.
Mrs. Rowe hastened from her room, behind the business parlour, in her dressing-gown, her teeth chattering, and her eyes flashing the fire of hate. The boarders sleeping upstairs would not have known the godly landlady, who glided about the house by day, rubbing her hands and hoping every soul under her roof was comfortable—or would at once complain to her, who lived only to make people comfortable—bills being but mere accidental accessories, fortuitously concurrent with the arrival of a cab and the descent of luggage.
"At the back door, mum, with his coat tucked over his ears, and such a cold in his head. Shall I show him in?"
"My life is a long misery, Jane," Mrs. Rowe said, under her voice.
"La! mum, it's quite safe. I'm sure I shouldn't trouble much about it—'specially in this country, as——"
"Silence!" Mrs. Rowe hissed. The thorns in her cross consisted chiefly of Jane's awkward attempts at consolation. "The villain is bent on my ruin. A bad boy he was; a bad man he is. Show him in; and see that François doesn't come here. Get some coffee yourself, Jane, and bring it. Let the brute in."
"You're hard upon him, mum, indeed you are. I'm sure he'd be a credit to——"