"Not at all," said Mother Borton. "You are in the right place."

"I was afraid I had intruded," I said apologetically.

"I expected you," she repeated. "Shut the door."

I glanced about the room. There was no sign of another person to be
seen, and no other door. I obeyed her.

"You might as well sit down," she said with some petulance. "There's
nothing up here to hurt you." There was so much meaning in her tone of
the things that would hurt me on the floor below that I hastened to
show my confidence in her, and drew up a chair to the table.

"At your service," I said, leaning before her with as much an
appearance of jaunty self-possession as I could muster.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" she asked grimly.

What should I answer? Could I tell her the truth? "Who are you?" she
repeated impatiently, gazing on me. "You are not Wilton. Tell me. Who
are you?"

The face, hard as it was, seamed with the record of a rough and evil
life, as it appeared, had yet a kindly look as it was turned on me.

"My name is Dudley,--Giles Dudley."

"Where is Wilton?"