but a misogynist is a thing beyond reason, and hateful."
"But, Hetty," said Layard, "if the man lives so very much to himself and does not leave his house, how is all this known?"
"Why, because all the women have not been abolished yet. Do you fancy there ever was a mystery a woman could not find out? It is the business of women to fathom mysteries. I'll engage that before we are a week here I shall know twice as much as I do now of our romantic neighbour."
"And then," said Crawford, showing signs of flagging interest, and directing his attention once more to the arrangement of the room, "perhaps Miss Layard will follow this Crusoe's example, and write a book against men."
"No, no. I like men."
He turned round and looked fully at her. "And upon my word, Miss Layard," said he warmly, "I think you would find a vast majority of men very willing to reciprocate the feeling."
Hetty laughed, and so did her brother.
"As I explained," said Crawford, "I shall want these rooms only once a month. I shall have to look after the property in this neighbourhood. I think I shall take a leaf out of our friend Crusoe's book, and keep very quiet and retired. I care to be known in this neighbourhood as little as possible. There is property of another kind in town. It, too, requires my personal supervision. I shall make this place my head-quarters, and keep what changes of clothes I require here. It is extremely unlikely I shall have any visitors. By the way, in what direction does Camberwell lie?" He asked the question with an elaborate carelessness which did not escape Alfred Layard.
"Up there," said Layard, waving his left hand in a southerly direction.
Once more Crawford approached the window. This time he leaned out, resting his hand on the sill.
In front of him lay Boland's Ait, a little island about a hundred yards long and forty yards wide in the middle, tapering off to a point at either end. Beyond the head of the island, pointing south, the tow-path was visible, and beyond the tail of the island the tow-path again, and further off Welford Bridge, lying north.
Hetty was leaning against the wainscot of the old-fashioned deep embrasure.
"Does that tow-path lead to Camberwell?" asked Crawford.
"Yes," answered the girl, making a gesture to the left.
"Is it much frequented?" asked he in a voice he tried to make commonplace, but from which he could not banish the hint of anxiety.
"O, no, very few people go along it."
"But now, I suppose, people sometimes come from that direction," waving his left hand, "for a walk?"
"Well," said the girl demurely, "the scenery isn't very attractive; but there is nothing to prevent people coming, if they pay the toll."
"O, there is a toll?" he said in a tone of relief, as if the knowledge of such a barrier between him and Camberwell were a source of satisfaction to him.
"Yes; a halfpenny on weekdays and a penny on Sundays."
He leaned further out. The frame of the window shook slightly. "We must have this woodwork fixed," he said a little peevishly. "What building is this here on your left? – a store of some kind with the gates off."
"That's the empty ice-house. It belongs to you, I believe."
"Ah! the empty ice-house. So it is. I never saw an ice-house before."
"It is full of water," said the girl, again drawing on the charwoman's store of local information. "It makes me quite uncomfortable to think of it."
The man, bending out of the window, shuddered, and shook the window-frame sharply. "There seems to be a great deal of water about here, and it doesn't look very ornamental."
"No," said Hetty; "but it's very useful."
Crawford's eyes were still directed to the left, but not at so sharp an angle as to command a view of the vacant icehouse. He was gazing across the head of the island at the tow-path.
Suddenly he drew in with a muttered imprecation; the window-frame shook violently, and a large piece of mortar fell and struck him on the nape of the neck. He sprang back with a second half-uttered malediction, and stood bolt upright a pace from the window, but did not cease to gaze across the head of the island.
Along the tow-path a tall man was advancing rapidly, swinging his arms in a remarkable manner as he walked.
"No, no, not hurt to speak of," he answered, with a hollow laugh, in reply to a question of Layard's, still keeping his eyes fixed on the tow-path visible beyond Boland's Ait. "The mortar has gone down my back. I shall change my coat and get rid of the mortar. My portmanteau has come, I perceive. Thank you, I am not hurt. Good evening for the present," he added, as brother and sister moved towards the door.
Although he did not stir further from the window, they saw he was in haste they should be gone, so they hurried away, shutting the door behind them.
When they had disappeared he went back to the window, and muttered in a hoarse voice: "I could have sworn it was Philip Ray-Philip Ray, her brother, who registered an oath he would shoot me whenever or wherever he met me, and he is the man to keep his word. He lives at Camberwell. It must have been he. If it was he, in a few minutes he will come out on the tow-path at the other end of the island; in two minutes-in three minutes at the very outside-he must come round the tail of the island, and then I can make sure whether it is Philip Ray or not. He will be only half the distance from me that he was before, and there will be light enough to make sure."
He waited two, three, four, five minutes-quarter of an hour, but from behind neither end of the island did the man emerge on the tow-path. There could be no doubt of this, for from where he stood a long stretch of the path was visible north and south beyond the island, and William Crawford's eyes swung from one end of the line to the other as frequently as the pendulum of a clock.
At length, when half-an-hour had passed, and it was almost dark, he became restless, excited, and in the end went down-stairs. In the front room he found Layard on the top of a step-ladder. He said:
"I was looking out of my window, and a man, coming from the northern end of the tow-path, disappeared behind the island, behind Boland's Ait. He has not come back and he has not come out at the other end. Where can he have gone? Is there some way of getting off the tow-path between the two points?" The speaker's manner was forced into a form of pleasant wonder; but there were strange white lines, like lines of fear, about his mouth and the corners of his eyes, "Is there a gate or way off the tow-path?"
"No. The man must have come off the tow path or gone into the water and been drowned," said Layard, not noticing anything peculiar in the other, and answering half-playfully.
"That would be too good," cried Crawford with a start, apparently taken off his guard.
"Eh?" cried Layard, facing round suddenly. He was in the act of driving in a brass-headed nail. The fervour in Crawford's tone caught his ear and made him suspend the blow he was about to deliver.
"Oh, nothing," said the other, with one of his short laughs. "A bad-natured joke. I meant it would be too much of a joke to think a man could be drowned in such a simple way. But this man hid himself behind the island and did not come forth at either end for half-an-hour, and I thought I'd ask you what you thought, as the circumstance piqued me. Good-night."
When he found himself
