Widnes Examiner. — 1906-09-29 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

CHAPTER XX.  ARTHUR 'ESMOND, on finding himself free from prison, made his way home to his lodgings in Bloomsbury. _  By a strange chance the house where he lived was within a very short walk of Miss Miggs' residence where at that moment Daisy was staying.  But ai Very short walk may mean eternal separation in London. One might live in London in the same street with a person for a year and not see ithern once, and to be lost in London is like being lost in the Atlantic Ocean.  "Oh, I hope you won't 'live to be that," said Miss Miggs cheerfully ;- "a hundred is much too old, dear, for people to go on living at, and now that we're here and comfortable let us talk about things." They talked for an hour or more, Miss Miggs doing most of the talking; her one endeavour seemed to be to draw the girl's mind away from herself, and she succeeded.  The horror Of his own position was nothing to Arthur compared to his despair at Daisy's action.  At half-past ten she led the way upstairs and showed Daisy her loom. It was a small, bright little room as clean as a new pin, furnished with a, camp bed, with a snow-white coverlet and some birch-wood bedroom furniture.  " Ivan Ivanovitch slept in that bed once," said the old lady as she bade the girl goodnight. " Ivanovitch, the great Russian patriot."  "Dear me," said Daisy. "Yes, they hanged him. It was partly his fault; he would go back to Russia, and they caught him and hanged him. Good-night, dear, and pleasant dreams." "Good-night," said Daisy, with a little shiver inspired lw 6.k.e story of Ivan Ivanovitch. . Thet scarcely had the .old lady closed the door than she opened it again. !!"Do you like sausages ? " she asked.  "Yes" replied Dar.sy somewhat startled at the irrelevancy of the question. "Then we'll have them for breakfast," said her hostess, and closed the door for good. Daisy laughed, then her eyes filled with tears. A few hours before she had been a‘ homeless wandeier in London, now she had found a protector and a roof to shelter her head. She stood for a moment with her hands clasped, then she knelt down beside the little snow-white bed to offer thanks for the great mercy of it all.  " New? "-saia he.  Miss Princeps looked at him almost kindly; the trouble she had gone through since Daisy's flight, the knowledge that was suddenly borne in upon her that she had treated the girl with unmerited severity and coldness, the suspense and the fear that her niece had committed suicide, all this had made a great change in her in a few hours. " I will let you know immediately I hear anything," she replied. Then he took his departure.  At three o'clock in the afternoon of that day he was in Oxford Street near Mudie's Library. Without occupation now, for the bank had suspended him pending a full investigation of the case and the magistrate's decision; he was without an object or a business in life, and he stood on the pavement debating in his own mind as to how he should kill the time. He remembered the instructions of Lord de Morley as to keeping his eyes open on the chance cif seeing again the man who had robbed him. But it seemed a hopeless sort of quest. He wandered away from Oxford Street through the maze of thoroughfares around the British Museum, walking listlessly and not caring where he went; he turned a corner into Bloomsbury Street. At the third house from the corner on the doorstep stood two ladies. One of them had just taken a latch key from her pocket to open the door. It was Miss Miggs ; beside her stood Daisy Graham.  Arthur stopped and they turned. He was only three paces from them. "Daisy," he said, speaking like a man in a.dream,"Daity I'l