Upon his arrival in town, Mr. Levinger drove to a private hotel in Jermyn Street, where he was in the habit of staying on the rare occasions when he visited London. He dressed and dined; then, having posted a letter to Emma stating that he would call for her and Miss Graves on the following morning in time to catch the eleven o’clock train, and escort them home, he ordered a hansom and told the cabman to take him to 8, Kent Street.
“It’s many a year since I have been in this place,” he thought to himself with a sigh, as the cab turned out of the Edgware Road, “and it doesn’t seem much changed. I wonder how she came to go to another house. Well, I shall know the worst, or the best of it, presently.” And again he sighed as the horse stopped with a jerk in front of No. 8.
‘You remember my words when you lie a-dying.’
Telling the man to wait, he rang the bell. The door was opened by Mrs. Bird herself, who, seeing an elderly gentleman in a fur coat, dropped a polite courtesy.
“Is this Mrs. Bird’s house, pray?” he asked in his gentle voice.
“Yes, sir; I am Mrs. Bird.”
“Indeed: then perhaps you received a telegram from me this morning,—Mr. Levinger?”
“Yes, sir, it came safely, and I ordered some things on the strength of it. Will you be so good as to step in, sir? I have heard poor Joan speak of you, though I never could make out what you were to her from her father down.”