“ Mr. Ned Plymdale has taken a house already.”

Lydgate, startled and jarred, looked up in silence for a moment, like a man who has been disturbed in his sleep. Then flushing with an unpleasant consciousness, he asked⁠—

“How do you know?”

“I called at Mrs. Plymdale’s this morning, and she told me that he had taken the house in St. Peter’s Place, next to Mr. Hackbutt’s.”