which the inmates appeared like brown shadows, pervaded the room.

The young man hesitated before this pestilential interior, and took
a seat on a bench on the veranda. After a moment's interval, the
yellow landlord came to the door with a look of inquiry, which
Guest answered by a demand for lodging and supper. When the
landlord had vanished again in the cigarette fog, the several other
guests, one after the other, appeared at the doorway, with their
cigarettes in their mouths and their cards still in their hands,
and gazed upon him.

There may have been some excuse for their curiosity. As before
hinted, Guest's appearance in his overalls and woolen shirt was
somewhat incongruous, and, for some inexplicable reason, the same
face and figure which did not look inconsistent in rags and extreme
poverty now at once suggested a higher social rank both of
intellect and refinement than his workman's dress indicated. This,
added to his surliness of manner and expression, strengthened a
growing suspicion in the mind of the party that he was a fugitive
from justice--a forger, a derelict banker, or possibly a murderer.
It is only fair to say that the moral sense of the spectators was
not shocked at the suspicion, and that a more active sympathy was
only withheld by his reticence. An unfortunate incident seemed to
complete the evidence against him. In impatiently responding to
the landlord's curt demand for prepayment of his supper, he allowed
three or four pieces of gold to escape from his pocket on the
veranda. In the quick glances of the party, as he stooped to pick
them up, he read the danger of his carelessness.

His sullen self-possession did not seem to be shaken. Calling to