Just you look at me--I'm going to sleep crooked, and the captain's not here to bawl at me!" The front room at the lodgings contained a sofa-bedstead which the landlady arranged betimes for the night.

This done, and the candles brought in, Magdalen was left alone to shape the future course as her own thoughts counseled her.
The questions and answers which had passed in her presence that evening at the stationer's shop led plainly to the conclusion that one day more would bring Noel Vanstone's present term of residence in Vauxhall Walk to an end.

Her first cautious resolution to pass many days together in unsuspected observation of the house opposite before she ventured herself inside was entirely frustrated by the turn events had taken.

She was placed in the dilemma of running all risks headlong on the next day, or of pausing for a future opportunity which might never occur.

There was no middle course open to her.