"No, mum, I ain't," said Jim. " Mr. Routh
hadn't no messages this mornin', and I ain't
been lucky since."

"It's a nice day for you to have a little time
to yourself," said Harriet. " I hope you got all
the commissions I left for you."

"I did, mum, and thank'ee," said Jim.
Harriet had remembered the street-boy when
she was leaving home, and had charged her
servants to employ him. She had not the slightest
suspicion of the extensive use which Routh was
in the habit of making of his services.

"The windows is to be cleaned," said Jim,
suggestively. " There warn't time, mum; you
come home so unexpected."

"Very well," said Harriet. " I suppose you
can clean them, can't you?"

"Mr. Harris said as I might try," returned
Jim. Mr. Harris was the irreproachable man-
servant attached to Routh's modest establishment
in Mayfair.

Harriet moved on, and Jim Swain stood still,
looking after her. She was a puzzle to him, and
an object of constant interest. By little and
little Jim had come to know a good deal about
Stuart Routh and his daily life, and he had
abandoned the first theory which had presented
itself to his mind, and which had owed its
inspiration to the illustrated penny literature
which formed his intellectual food. He no
longer believed Harriet a persecuted victim of
her husband's groundless jealousy. For reasons
of his own, equally strong and secret, Mr. James
Swain had taken a lively interest in George
Dallas, had experienced certain emotions on
seeing him, and had taken very kindly to the
business of espionage in which Routh had
engaged his services, without affording him any
indication of its purpose. At first the boy had
conceived an idea that Dallas was the object of
Harriet's supposed preference and Routh's
supposed jealousy, but he abandoned that notion
very speedily, and since then he had not succeeded
in forming any new theory to his
satisfaction. From the conversation of the servants,
Jim had learned, that Mr. Dallas and Mr. Felton,
with whose personal appearance the boy was
equally familiar, had gone to the same place in
foreign parts as that to which Mr. and Mrs.
Routh had gone, a little later, and knowing this,
Jim thought more and more frequently over
certain circumstances which he had kept to
himself with extraordinary discretion—discretion,
indeed, which nothing but the strongest possible
sense of self-interest, as inseparable from its
observance, could have enabled him to preserve.

"He don't like him," Jim would say to
himself, with frequent repetition, " he don't like
him, can't abear him; I knows that precious well.
And he can't be afraid of him, as I can see, for
he certainly warn't neither in nor near that
business, and I'm blest if he knows anythin'
about it. Wotever can he want to know all
about him for, and keep a-follerin' him about?
It ain't for no good as he follers anybody, I'll
take my davy." And Mr. James Swain's daily
reflections invariably terminated with that
formula, which was indeed a simple and accurate
statement of the boy's belief. His
abandonment of his theories concerning Harriet
had worked no change in his mind towards
Routh. His familiarity with Routh's servants,
his being in a manner free of the house—free,
but under the due amount of inspection and
suspicion justified by his low estate—
enlightened him as to Harriet's domestic position,
and made him wonder exceedingly, in his
half-simple, half-knowing way, how " the
like of her could be spoony on sich a cove as
him," which was Mr. James Swain's fashion of
expressing his sense of ther moral disparity
between the husband and wife.

This was the second time that Jim had seen
Mrs. Routh since her return from the trip
which he had been told was specially undertaken
for the benefit of her health. The first
time was on the day of her arrival, when Jim
had fortunately been " handy," and had helped
with the luggage. He had made his observations
then upon Harriet's appearance with all
his native impudence; for though the element
of suspicion, which lent his interest in Harriet
something tragic, had died out of it, that interest
continued lively, but he had admitted that
it was pardonable that she should look " precious
blue and funky" after a journey.

But looking at her more attentively on this
second occasion, and when there was no journey
in the case, Jim arrived at the conclusion that
whatever had "ailed" Mrs. Routh before she
left home ailed her still.

"Uncommon ill she do look, to be sure," he
said to himself, as he crumpled up the exciting
fiction which he had been reading, and which
"left off " at a peculiarly thrilling crisis, and
wedged the illustrated journal into his cap;
"uncommon ill. Wot's the good of all them
baths and things, if she's to come back lookin'
like this—a deal worse, I call it, and much
miserabler in her mind? Wotever ails her?"

At this point in his cogitations Jim began to
move on, slowly indeed, and keeping his eye on
Harriet, who had reached one of the gates of
the Park opening into Piccadilly, had passed
through it, and was just about to cross to the
opposite side. She stood for a moment irresolute,
then turned, came through the gate again,
and rapidly approached Jim, beckoning him
towards her as she came.

She stood still as the boy ran up to her, and
pointed to one of the smaller but much
decorated houses on the opposite side of the way.

"Jim," she said, " you see that house, where
the wide windows are, all one pane, and the
bright balconies there, the house with the wide
door, and the heavy carved railings?"

"Yes, mum, I see," said Jim.

"Go to that house, and ask if anything has
been heard from Mr. Felton. Ask when he is
expected—he has taken lodgings there—whether
any other gentleman is expected to come with
him and, Jim, be sure to ask in particular
whether any letters have been received for Mr.
Felton, and sent on to him."