whose hard features proclaimed his relation to Eve, otherwise
seeming so improbable. He looked up from the volume open on his knee
--a Bible--and said in a rough, kind voice:

"I was thinkin' it 'ud be about toime for you. You look starved, my
lass."

"Yes; it has turned very cold."

"I've got a bit o' supper ready for you. I don't want none myself;
there's food enough for me _here_." He laid his hand on the book.
"D'you call to mind the eighteenth of Ezekiel, lass?--'But if the
wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed----'"

Eve stood motionless till he had read the verse, then nodded and
began to take off her out-of-door garments. She was unable to talk,
and her eyes wandered absently.



CHAPTER XIX


After a week's inquiry, Hilliard discovered the lodging that would
suit his purpose. It was Camp Hill; two small rooms at the top of a
house, the ground-floor of which was occupied as a corn-dealer's
shop, and the story above that tenanted by a working optician with a
blind wife. On condition of papering the rooms and doing a few
repairs necessary to make them habitable, he secured them at the low
rent of four shillings a week.