The door on the right, at the end of the passage, was opened as soon as he put his foot on the landing, and the woman said, in a low voice:
"Come in, my dear."
A whiff of a very strong smell met his nostrils through the open door, and suddenly he exclaimed:
"How stupid I was! I know what it is now; it is carbolic acid, is it not?"
"Yes," the woman replied. "Don't you like it, dear? It is very wholesome, you know."
The woman was not ugly, although not young; she had very good eyes, although they were sad and sunken in her head; evidently she had been crying, very much quite recently, and that imparted a special spice to the vague smile which she put on, so as to appear more amiable.
Seized by his romantic ideas once more, and under the influence of the presentiment which he had had just before, he thought—and the idea filled him with pleasure:
"She is some widow, whom poverty has forced to sell herself."
The room was small, but very clean and tidy, and that confirmed him in his conjecture, as he was curious to verify its truth, he went into the three rooms which opened into one another. The bedroom, came first; next there came a kind of a drawing-room, and then a dining-room, which evidently served as a kitchen, for a Dutch tiled stove stood in the middle of it, on which a stew was simmering, but the smell of carbolic acid was even stronger in that room. He remarked on it, and added with a laugh:
"Do you put it with your soup?"