religious and ascetic influence, for he had occupied a monastic
cell in a school of the padres at an old mission, and slept
profoundly;--it was none of those, and yet a part of all. Most
habitations retain a cast or shell of their previous tenant that,
fitting tightly or loosely, is still able to adjust itself to the
newcomer; in most occupied apartments there is still a shadowy
suggestion of the owner's individuality; there was nothing here
that fitted Bly--nor was there either, strange to say, any evidence
of the past proprietor in this inhospitality of sensation. It did
not strike him at the time that it was this very LACK of
individuality which made it weird and unreal, that it was strange
only because it was ARTIFICIAL, and that a REAL Tappington had
never inhabited it.

He walked to the window--that never-failing resource of the unquiet
mind--and looked out. He was a little surprised to find, that,
owing to the grading of the house, the scrub-oaks and bushes of the
hill were nearly on the level of his window, as also was the
adjoining side street on which his second door actually gave.
Opening this, the sudden invasion of the sea-fog and the figure of
a pedestrian casually passing along the disused and abandoned
pavement not a dozen feet from where he had been comfortably
seated, presented such a striking contrast to the studious quiet
and cosiness of his secluded apartment that he hurriedly closed the
door again with a sense of indiscreet exposure. Returning to the
window, he glanced to the left, and found that he was overlooked by
the side veranda of another villa in the rear, evidently on its way
to take position on the line of the street. Although in actual and
deliberate transit on rollers across the backyard and still
occulting a part of the view, it remained, after the reckless