London for the benefit of readers beyond number. Hard upon the reporters came the fussy relatives and friends of passengers, and amid the general kissings and hand-shakings on deck no one had much thought for any particular individual beyond himself.

So, without arousing any comment, there stepped from the main entrance to the saloon a tall, spare, clean-shaven man dressed in clerical garb. Even the fact that his face was exceedingly ruddy and that his eyes were of a peculiar sea-green shade aroused no comment.

Carrying a little bag in his hand, the apparently athletic curate swept his way to the head of the gangway, where his fresh and smiling face invited confidence from the reporters who hovered there, nervous lest the baronet should escape them.

One of them lifted his hat, and stepping forward, asked the tall, youthful parson if he had seen Sir Paul Westerham.

The parson smiled and said gravely:

“Yes, I saw him two minutes ago in his state-room.”

There was a stampede on the part of the journalists, and, smiling blandly to himself, Westerham[Pg 24] settled his clerical hat firmly on his head and sped down the gangway.

[Pg 24]

In the days he had spent below decks Westerham had mapped out for himself a sufficiently daring and ingenious plan of campaign to satisfy the most exacting of romantic minds. It was, indeed, with almost boyish zest that he entered on the adventure, and with all the enthusiasm of an amateur detective had paved the way for slipping up to London, there to become a lost nonentity.

He knew better than to take the boat-train. Instead, he went up to the Adelphi Hotel, where fewer of his fellow-passengers were likely to congregate than at the North-Western, deposited his bag, and thereafter sauntered out to enjoy a stroll through the crowded streets of Liverpool.

At the Adelphi he slept that night, proceeding up to London on the following day.

He arrived at Euston about one o'clock, and drove straight to Walter's, a small yet comfortable hotel on the north side of the Strand.

Before going there, however, he had taken the precaution to buy some passable, if ready-made, clothes, together with a tweed cap, so that there was left about him no trace of the clerical 

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