esolutely kept his attention fixed on what
they were saying. Then when one after the other composed themselves for
a sleep, he sat with his eyes closed, thinking over his school-days. He
had already, while he lay tossing on his bed, thought over the
revelation he had heard from every point of view. He had exhausted the
subject, and would not allow his thoughts to return to it.

He now fought the football match of the Greenites over again in fancy.
It seemed to him that it was an event that had taken place a long time
back, quite in the dim distance, and he was wondering vaguely over this
when he too fell asleep, and did not wake up until the train arrived at
Paddington. It was with a feeling of satisfaction that he stepped out on
to the platform. Now there was something to do. It was too early yet to
see about lodgings. He went to a little coffee-house that was already
open for the use of the workmen, had some breakfast there, and then
walked about for two or three hours until London was astir, leaving his
things at the coffee-house. Then he went to a pawnbroker's and pawned
his watch and chain. Then, having fetched his things from the
coffee-house, he went into the Edgware Road and took an omnibus down to
Victoria and then walked on across Vauxhall Bridge, and set to work to
look for lodgings.

He was not long in finding a bed-room to let, and here he installed
himself. He was convinced Captain Clinton would have a vigilant search
made for him, but he thought that he was now fairly safe, however sharp
the detectives might be in their hunt for him. He felt deeply the sorrow
there would be at home, for he knew that up to now he and Rupert had
been loved equally, and that even the discovery that he had had no right
to the care and kindness he had received would make no great difference
in their feeling towards him. Had the change of children been really the
result of accident, he would not have acted as he had done.

He himself had had no hand in the fraud, but were he to accept anything
now from Captain Clinton he felt that he would be an accessary to it.
Had not his mother, his own mother, proposed that he should take part in
the plot, that he should go on deceiving them, and even that he should
rob Rupert altogether of his inheritance? It was too horrible to think
of. There was nothing for it that he could see but for him to go out
utterly from their lives, and to fight his way alone until he could, at
any rate, show