Answer:
McMurdo moved his lodgings from old Jacob Shafter’s and took up his quarters at the Widow MacNamara’s on the extreme outskirts of the town. Scanlan, his original acquaintance aboard the train, had occasion shortly afterwards to move into Vermissa, and the two lodged together. There was no other boarder, and the hostess was an easy-going old Irishwoman who left them to themselves; so that they had a freedom for speech and action welcome to men who had secrets in common.
Shafter had relented to the extent of letting McMurdo come to his meals there when he liked; so that his intercoursebq with Ettie was by no means broken.
