had not been the last tenant of the House, and that the reason of its
emptiness was still to seek.

"What I have gone through," said Jarber, "words are not eloquent enough
to tell. O Sophonisba, I have begun another series of discoveries!
Accept the last two as stories laid on your shrine; and wait to blame me
for leaving your curiosity unappeased, until you have heard Number
Three."

Number Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much.
Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. In
the course of his investigations he had stepped into the Circulating
Library, to seek for information on the one important subject. All the
Library-people knew about the House was, that a female relative of the
last tenant, as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, sent a
little manuscript poem to them which she described as referring to events
that had actually passed in the House; and which she wanted the
proprietor of the Library to publish. She had written no address on her
letter; and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be given back
to her (the publishing of poems not being in his line) when she might
call for it. She had never called for it; and the poem had been lent to
Jarber, at his express request, to read to me.

Before he began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to have
him present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy. To
my surprise Peggy answered the bell, and told me, that Trottle had
stepped out without saying where. I instantly felt the strongest
possible conviction that he was at his old tricks: and that his stepping
out in the evening, without leave, meant--Philandering.