not know what has become of him?"

"Not at all. I should think he has left London."

"Why?"

"Because had he remained in it he'd be sure to have come bothering me to
employ him again; unless, indeed, he has found some one else to do it."

"Well," said Mr. Carr, rising, "will you do me this favour? If you come
across the man again, or learn tidings of him in any way, let me know it
at once. I do not want him to hear of me, or that I have made inquiries
about him. I only wish to ascertain _where_ he is, if that be possible.
Any one bringing me this information privately will find it well worth
his while."

He went forth into the busy streets again, sick at heart; and upon
reaching his chambers wrote a note for a detective officer, and put some
business into his hands.

Meanwhile Lord Hartledon remained in London. When the term for which
they had engaged the furnished house was expired he took lodgings in
Grafton Street; and there he stayed, his frame of mind restless and
unsatisfactory. Lady Hartledon wrote to him sometimes, and he answered
her. She said not a word about the discovery she had made in regard to
the alleged action-at-law; but she never failed in every letter to ask
what he was doing, and when he was coming home--meaning to Hartledon.
He put her off in the best way he could: he and Carr were very busy
together, he said: as to home, he could not mention any particular time.
And Lady Hartledon bottled up her curiosity and her wrath, and waited
with what patience she possessed.

The truth was--and, perhaps, the reader may have divined it--that graver
motives than the sensitive feeling of not liking to face the Ashtons were
keeping Lord Hartledon from his wife and home. He had once, in his
bachelor days, wished himself a savage in some remote desert, where his
civilized acquaintance could not come near him; he had a thousand times
more reason to wish himself one now.

One dusty day, when the excessive heat of summer was on the wane, he went
down to Mr. Carr's chambers, and found that gentleman out. Not out for
long, the clerk thought; and sat down and waited. The room he was in
looked out on the cool garden, the quiet river; in the one there was not
a soul except Mr. Broom himself, who had gone in to watch the progress
of his chrysanthemums, and was stooping lovingly over the beds; on the
other a steamer, freighted with a straggling few, was paddling up the
river against the tide, and a barge with its