she should do. At last, remembering that she could get a pillow from the
room they reserved for letting, she turned to go.

Facing their room, and only divided by the very narrowest of passages, was
the stranger's apartment.

Both doors were approached by a couple of steps, which so reduced the space
that were two people to meet on the landing, one would have to give way to
the other. Mr. and Mrs. Ede found this proximity to their lodger, when they
had one, somewhat inconvenient, but, as he said, 'One doesn't get ten
shillings a week for nothing.'

Kate lingered a moment on the threshold, and then, with the hand in which
she held the novel she had been reading, she picked up her skirt and
stepped across the way.




II


At first she could not determine who was passing through the twilight of
the room, but as the blinds were suddenly drawn up and a flood of sunlight
poured across the bed, she fell back amid the pillows, having recognized
her mother-in-law in a painful moment of semi-blindness. The old woman
carried a slop-pail, which she nearly dropped, so surprised was she to find
Kate in the stranger's room.

'But how did you get here?' she said hastily.