to give me four days before you set on foot any inquiry. There are others concerned in the matter. I assure you that you will be wise.”

Paul shook his head. “Four days. What shall I do with myself during those four days?”

“You have been very lonely for years,” said the lawyer gently. “Four days more, what do they mean?”

“During those years,” answered Paul, “I have had the future for my companion. Have I got that companion now?” and Mr. Ferguson was silent.

“I came to your office full of expectation. I have not even now revealed to you the plan I had formed,” Paul resumed. “I leave it a prey to a very deep anxiety. That name I mentioned to you, I found written on the flyleaf of an old manual on infantry drill in my father’s bedroom. It was the only old book on his shelf from which the flyleaf had not been torn out. I am only now beginning to grasp what that may mean.” But since Mr. Ferguson had ceased to dispute or pretend, and showed openly a face where distress was joined with good will, the young man cried:

“Still, I’ll give you the four days, Mr. Ferguson.”

He wrote down the name of his hotel upon a slip of paper and left it on the desk, and shook the lawyer by the hand.

Left alone, Mr. Ferguson sat for a little while in a muse, living again the sweet and bitter scenes of vanished years. To what unhappy ends of death and disgrace had those anxieties and endeavours led? To what futilities the buoyant aspiration? He rang the bell upon his desk, and when his head clerk appeared he said:

“I want a message telephoned to Goring that I shall not get home until eight. Then every one can go. I have a letter to write which will take a little time.”

“Very well, sir,” said Gregory, and Mr. Ferguson suddenly slapped his hand down on the table in exasperation.

“Isn’t it a curious thing, Gregory?” he exclaimed. “Here’s a man takes a world of pains to destroy all traces and records and then keeps by him one book with a name written upon the flyleaf which brings in a second all his trouble to nothing! But it’s always the way. Something’s forgotten which you’d think no man in his senses would overlook! Half the miseries in the world I do believe come from such omissions.”

“And more than half our business,” Gregory replied drily.

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