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At a quarter past the hour there appeared from the direction of London Bridge a well-known figure, walking slowly, head bent. Munden moved forward, and, on seeing him, Shergold grasped his hand feverishly.

‘Ha! how glad I am to meet you, Munden! Come; let us walk this way.’ He turned from Maze Pond. ‘I got your message up yonder an hour or two ago. So glad I have met you here, old fellow.’

‘Well, your day has come,’ said Harvey, trying to read his friend’s features in the gloom.

‘He has left me about eighty thousand pounds,’ Shergold replied, in a low, shaken voice. ‘I’m told there are big legacies to hospitals as well. Heavens! how rich he was!’

‘When is the funeral?’

‘Friday.’

‘Where shall you live in the meantime?’

‘I don’t know–I haven’t thought about it.’

‘I should go to some hotel, if I were you,’ said Munden, ‘and I have a proposal to make. If I wait till Saturday, will you come with me to Como?’

Shergold did not at once reply. He was walking hurriedly, and making rather strange movements with his head and arms. They came into the shadow of the vaulted way beneath London Bridge Station. At this hour the great tunnel was quiet, save when a train roared above; the warehouses were closed; one or two idlers, of forbidding aspect, hung about in the murky gaslight, and from the far end came a sound of children at play.

‘You won’t be wanted here?’ Munden added.

‘No–no–I think not.’ There was agitation in the voice.

‘Then you will come?’

‘Yes, I will come.’ Shergold spoke with unnecessary vehemence and laughed oddly.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ his friend asked.

‘Nothing–the change of circumstances, I suppose. Let’s get on. Let us go somewhere–I can’t help reproaching myself; I ought to feel or show a decent sobriety; but what was the old fellow to me? I’m grateful to him.’

‘There’s nothing else on your mind?’

Shergold looked up, startled.

‘What do you mean? Why do you ask?’

They stood together in the black shadow of an interval between two lamps. After reflecting for a moment, Munden decided to speak.

‘I called at your lodgings early to-day, and somehow I got into talk with the girl. She was cheeky, and her behaviour puzzled me. Finally she made an incredible announcement–that you had asked her to marry you. Of course it’s a lie?’

‘To marry her?’ exclaimed the listener hoarsely, with an attempt at laughter. ‘Do you think that likely–after all I have gone through?’

‘No, I certainly don’t. It staggered me. But what I want to know is, can she cause trouble?’

‘How do I know?–a girl will lie so boldly. She might make a scandal, I suppose; or threaten it, in hope of getting money out of me.’

‘But is there any ground for a scandal?’ demanded Harvey.

‘Not the slightest, as you mean it.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. But she may give you trouble. I see the thing doesn’t astonish you very much; no doubt you were aware of her character.’

‘Yes, yes; I know it pretty well. Come, let us get out of this squalid inferno; how I hate it! Have you had dinner? I don’t want any. Let us go to your rooms, shall we? There’ll be a hansom passing the bridge.’

They walked on in silence, and when they had found a cab they drove westward, talking only of Dr. Shergold’s affairs. Munden lived in the region of the Squares, hard by the British Museum; he took his friend into a comfortably furnished room, the walls hidden with books and prints, and there they sat down to smoke, a bottle of whisky within easy reach of both. It was plain to Harvey that some mystery lay in his friend’s reserve on the subject of the girl Emma; he was still anxious, but would not lead the talk to unpleasant things. Shergold drank like a thirsty man, and the whisky seemed to make him silent. Presently he fell into absolute muteness, and lay wearily back in his chair.