Chapter 44 - Page 2

getting the better of him at last by sullenly sticking
to him, as he would have been--and often had been--of mastering
any piece of study in the way of his vocation, by the like slow
persistent process. A man of rapid passions and sluggish
intelligence, it had served him often and should serve him again.

The suspicion crossed him as he rested in a doorway with his eyes
upon the Temple gate, that perhaps she was even concealed in that
set of Chambers. It would furnish another reason for Wrayburn's
purposeless walks, and it might be. He thought of it and thought
of it, until he resolved to steal up the stairs, if the gatekeeper would
let him through, and listen. So, the haggard head suspended in the
air flitted across the road, like the spectre of one of the many heads
erst hoisted upon neighbouring Temple Bar, and stopped before the
watchman.

The watchman looked at it, and asked: 'Who for?'

'Mr Wrayburn.'

'It's very late.'

'He came back with Mr Lightwood, I know, near upon two hours
ago. But if he has gone to bed, I'll put a paper in his letter-box. I
am expected.'

The watchman said no more, but opened the gate, though rather
doubtfully. Seeing, however, that the visitor went straight and fast
in the right direction, he seemed satisfied.

The haggard head floated up the dark staircase, and softly
descended nearer to the floor outside the outer door of the
chambers. The doors of the rooms within, appeared to be standing
open. There were rays of candlelight from one of them, and there
was the sound of a footstep going about. There were two voices.
The words they uttered were not distinguishable, but they were
both the voices of men. In a few moments the voices were silent,
and there was no sound of footstep, and the inner light went out. If
Lightwood could have seen the face which kept him awake, staring
and listening in the darkness outside the door as he spoke of it, he
might have been less disposed to sleep, through the remainder of
the night.

'Not there,' said Bradley; 'but she might have been.' The head
arose to its former height from the ground, floated down the stair-
case again, and passed on to the gate. A man was standing there,
in parley with the watchman.

'Oh!' said the watchman. 'Here he is!'

Perceiving himself to be the antecedent, Bradley looked from the
watchman to the man.

'This man is leaving a letter for Mr Lightwood,' the watchman
explained, showing it in his hand; 'and I was mentioning that a
person had just gone up to Mr Lightwood's chambers. It might be
the same business perhaps?'

'No,' said Bradley, glancing at the man, who was a stranger to him.

'No,' the man assented in a surly way; 'my