This, I told myself, was her story also. A
common enough story in life as in literature, but novel to those
who live it.
There was no reason for my connecting her with the original of the
miniature, except perhaps a subtle relationship between the thin
nervous handwriting and the mobile features; yet I felt
instinctively they were one and the same, and that I was tracing,
link by link, the history of my forgotten friend.
I felt urged to probe further, and next morning while my landlady
was clearing away my breakfast things, I fenced round the subject
once again.
"By the way," I said, "while I think of it, if I leave any books or
papers here behind me, send them on at once. I have a knack of
doing that sort of thing. I suppose," I added, "your lodgers often
do leave some of their belongings behind them."
It sounded to myself a clumsy ruse. I wondered if she would
suspect what was behind it.
"Not often," she answered. "Never that I can remember, except in
the case of one poor lady who died here."
I glanced up quickly.
"In this room?" I asked.
My landlady seemed troubled at my tone.
"Well, not exactly in this very room.
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