Lightwood was shaking his head over the air with which his friend held forth thus⁠—an air so whimsically open and argumentative as almost to deprive what he said of the appearance of evasion⁠—when a shuffling was heard at the outer door, and then an undecided knock, as though some hand were groping for the knocker. “The frolicsome youth of the neighbourhood,” said Eugene, “whom I should be delighted to pitch from this elevation into the churchyard below, without any intermediate ceremonies, have probably turned the lamp out. I am on duty tonight, and will see to the door.”

His friend had barely had time to recall the unprecedented gleam of determination with which he had spoken of finding this girl, and which had faded out of him with the breath of the spoken words, when Eugene came back, ushering in a most disgraceful shadow of a man, shaking from head to foot, and clothed in shabby grease and smear.