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‘And does Andrew Jones still keep on as architect?’

‘He’s dead, sir.’

‘And the Vicar of St. Mary’s–Mr. Melrose?’

‘He’s been dead a great many years.’

‘Dear me!’ He paused yet longer, and cleared his voice. ‘Is Mr. Downe, the solicitor, still in practice?’

‘No, sir, he’s dead. He died about seven years ago.’

Here it was a longer silence still; and an attentive observer would have noticed that the paper in the stranger’s hand increased its imperceptible tremor to a visible shake. That gray-haired gentleman noticed it himself, and rested the paper on the counter. ‘Is Mrs. Downe still alive?’ he asked, closing his lips firmly as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and dropping his eyes.

‘Yes, sir, she’s alive and well. She’s living at the old place.’

‘In East Street?’

‘O no; at Chateau Ringdale. I believe it has been in the family for some generations.’

‘She lives with her children, perhaps?’

‘No; she has no children of her own. There were some Miss Downes; I think they were Mr. Downe’s daughters by a former wife; but they are married and living in other parts of the town. Mrs. Downe lives alone.’

‘Quite alone?’

‘Yes, sir; quite alone.’

The newly-arrived gentleman went back to the hotel and dined; after which he made some change in his dress, shaved back his beard to the fashion that had prevailed twenty years earlier, when he was young and interesting, and once more emerging, bent his steps in the direction of the harbour-road. Just before getting to the point where the pavement ceased and the houses isolated themselves, he overtook a shambling, stooping, unshaven man, who at first sight appeared like a professional tramp, his shoulders having a perceptible greasiness as they passed under the gaslight. Each pedestrian momentarily turned and regarded the other, and the tramp-like gentleman started back.

‘Good–why–is that Mr. Barnet? ‘Tis Mr. Barnet, surely!’

‘Yes; and you are Charlson?’

‘Yes–ah–you notice my appearance. The Fates have rather ill-used me. By-the-bye, that fifty pounds. I never paid it, did I? . . . But I was not ungrateful!’ Here the stooping man laid one hand emphatically on the palm of the other. ‘I gave you a chance, Mr. George Barnet, which many men would have thought full value received–the chance to marry your Lucy. As far as the world was concerned, your wife was a drowned woman, hey?’

‘Heaven forbid all that, Charlson!’

‘Well, well, ’twas a wrong way of showing gratitude, I suppose. And now a drop of something to drink for old acquaintance’ sake! And Mr. Barnet, she’s again free–there’s a chance now if you care for it–ha, ha!’ And the speaker pushed his tongue into his hollow cheek and slanted his eye in the old fashion.

‘I know all,’ said Barnet quickly; and slipping a small present into the hands of the needy, saddening man, he stepped ahead and was soon in the outskirts of the town.

He reached the harbour-road, and paused before the entrance to a well- known house. It was so highly bosomed in trees and shrubs planted since the erection of the building that one would scarcely have recognized the spot as that which had been a mere neglected slope till chosen as a site for a dwelling. He opened the swing-gate, closed it noiselessly, and gently moved into the semicircular drive, which remained exactly as it had been marked out by Barnet on the morning when Lucy Savile ran in to thank him for procuring her the post of governess to Downe’s children. But the growth of trees and bushes which revealed itself at every step was beyond all expectation; sun-proof and moon-proof bowers vaulted the walks, and the walls of the house were uniformly bearded with creeping plants as high as the first-floor windows.

After lingering for a few minutes in the dusk of the bending boughs, the visitor rang the door-bell, and on the servant appearing, he announced himself as ‘an old friend of Mrs. Downe’s.’