Such, and of such kind, were my house-mates; and I have since been told that every great city has many such groups of people, the great prophets, the great historians, the great authors, the great actors whom the world does not know—the odds and ends of humanity, thrown aside by the rushing river of life into the gulley-ways that line its banks, the odd brothers, the odd sisters, the odd uncles, the odd aunts, for whom there is no place in the family, in society, or in the business of the world.
It was all very curious and pathetic, yet I think I should have been safe, for a time at all events, in this little corner of London into which chance had so strangely thrown me, but for one unfortunate happening.
That was the arrival of the daily newspaper.
There was never more than a single copy. It came at eight in the morning and was laid on the dining-room mantelpiece, from which (by an unwritten law of the house) it was the duty as well as the honour of the person who had first finished breakfast to take it up and read the most startling part of the news to the rest of the company.
Thus it occurred that on the third morning after my arrival I was startled by the voice of the old colonel, who, standing back to the fire, with the newspaper in his hand, cried:
"Mysterious Disappearance of a Peeress."
"Read it," said the old clergyman.
The tea-cup which I was raising to my mouth trembled in my hand, and when I set it down it rattled against the saucer. I knew what was coming, and it came.
The old colonel read:
"A telegram from Blackwater announces the mysterious disappearance of the young wife of Lord Raa, which appears to have taken place late on Thursday night or in the early hours of Friday morning.