Quite simple--They were nice people evidently, and would make no fuss.

He would say it now--but Jean was speaking.
"I think I know why you wanted to see through this house," she was saying.

"I think you must have known it long ago when you were a boy.
Perhaps you loved it too--and had to leave it." "I went to London when I was eighteen to make my fortune." "Oh," said Jean, and into that "Oh" she put all manner of things she could not say.

She had been observing her visitor, and she was sure that this shabby little man (Peter Reid cared not at all for appearances and never bought a new suit of clothes unless compelled) had returned no Whittington, Lord Mayor of London.

Probably he was one of the "faithful failures" of the world, one who had tried and missed, and had come back, old and tired and shabby, to see his boyhood's home.