`` 'he is an old friend of mine , ' i told her , to which she replied , laying her hand upon my arm , 'well , any friend of dr. kearns ' , guv'na ... ' `` she confessed that the man had been a regular customer ; that he had , in fact , been staying with her in the flat on musbury street since his discharge from the navy a week before he became ill ; and that she had hidden the truth based on her fear that her landlord would evict her for living with a man outside the sanctity of holy matrimony .