ng
examinations and stages, and was very decent all around. No--I fixed up in
the rooms which I've still got--a flat in the Adelphi."

"But you went a good deal to Portman Square?"

"Why, yes, a good deal--once or twice a week, as a rule."

"Had your cousin--Miss Wynne--come there then?"

"Yes, she'd just about come. I remember she had a governess. Of course,
Peggie was a mere child then--about five or six. Must have been six,
because she's quite twenty-one now."

"And--Mr. Tertius?"

Burchill spoke the name with a good deal of subtle meaning, and
Barthorpe suddenly looked at him with a rising comprehension.

"Tertius?" he answered. "No--Tertius hadn't arrived on the scene then.
He came--soon after."

"How soon after?"

"I should say," replied Barthorpe, after a moment's consideration, "I
should say--from my best recollection--a few months after I came to
London. It was certainly within a year of my coming."

"You remember his coming?"

"Not particularly. I remember that he came--at first, I took it, as a
visitor. Then I found he'd had rooms of his own given him, and that he
was there as a permanency."

"Settled down--just as he has been ever since?"

"Just! Never any difference that I've known of, all these years."

"Did Jacob ever tell you who he was?"

"Never! I never remember my uncle speaking of him in any particular
fashion--to me. He was simply--there. Sometimes, you saw him; sometimes,
you didn't see him. At times, I mean, you'd meet him at dinner--other
times, you didn't."

Burchill paused for a while; when he asked his next question he seemed
to adopt a more particular and pressing tone.

"Now--have you the least idea who Tertius is?" he asked.

"Not the slightest!" affirmed Barthorpe. "I never have known who he is.
I never liked him--I didn't like his sneaky way of going about the
house--I didn't like anything of him--and he never liked me. I always
had a feeling--a sort of intuition--that he resented my presence--in
fact, my existence."

"Very likely," said Burchill, with a dry laugh. "Well--has it ever
struck you that there was a secret between Tertius and Jacob Herapath?"

Barthorpe started. At last they were coming to something definite.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "So--that's the secret you mentioned in that
letter?"

"Never mind," replied Burchill. "Answer my question."

"No, then--it never did strike me."

"Very well," said Burchill. "There is a secret."

"There is?"

"There