the second class; his porter and his porter's companion accompanied him
secretly by the third.

V

It was still early in the afternoon when Mr. Ronald descended the
narrow street which leads from the high land of the South-Eastern
railway station to the port of Ramsgate. Asking his way of the first
policeman whom he met, he turned to the left, and reached the cliff on
which the houses in Albion Place are situated. Farnaby followed him at
a discreet distance; and the woman followed Farnaby.

Arrived in sight of the lodging-house, Mr. Ronald paused--partly to
recover his breath, partly to compose himself. He was conscious of a
change of feeling as he looked up at the windows: his errand suddenly
assumed a contemptible aspect in his own eyes. He almost felt ashamed
of himself. After twenty years of undisturbed married life, was it
possible that he had doubted his wife--and that at the instigation of a
stranger whose name even was unknown to him? "If she was to step out in
the balcony, and see me down here," he thought, "what a fool I should
look!" He felt half-inclined, at the moment when he lifted the knocker
of the door, to put it back again quietly, and return to London. No! it
was too late. The maid-servant was hanging up her birdcage in the area
of the house; the maid-servant had seen him.

"Does Mrs. Ronald lodge here?" he asked.

The girl lifted her eyebrows and opened her mouth--stared at him in
speechless confusion--and disappeared in the kitchen regions. This
strange reception of his inquiry irritated him unreasonably. He knocked