"Not in the least. I told you I could not separate them in my mind."
"Well, I must say, it seems odd. A girl like that and Miss Clare! Why, as often as you speak of the one, you seem to think of the other."
"In fact," he returned, "I am, as I say, unable to dissociate them. But if you had seen the girl, you would not wonder. The likeness was absolutely complete."
"I believe you do consider them one and the same; and I am more than half inclined to think so myself, remembering what Judy said."
"Isn't it possible some one who knows Miss Clare may have seen this girl, and been misled by the likeness?"
"But where, then, does Miss Clare live? Nobody seems to know."
"You have never asked any one but Mrs. Morley."
"You have yourself, however, given me reason to think she avoids the subject. If she did live anywhere hereabout, she would have some cause to avoid it."
I had stopped to look down the passage.
"Suppose," said Roger, "some one were to come past now and see Mrs.
Percivale, the wife of the celebrated painter, standing in Tottenham Court
Road beside the swing-door of a corner public-house, talking to a young
man."