s.

'My voice?' she asked. 'Some one--who sang like me? Who died?'

'Long before you were born,' he answered gently.

There was another little pause before she spoke again, for she was
touched.

'Thank you,' she said. 'Thank you for writing that.'

CHAPTER V

Mr. Van Torp arrived in London alone, with one small valise, for he
had sent his man with his luggage to the place in Derbyshire. At
Euston a porter got him a hansom, and he bargained with the cabman to
take him and his valise to the Temple for eighteenpence, a sum which,
he explained, allowed sixpence for the valise, as the distance could
not by any means be made out to be more than two miles.

Such close economy was to be expected from a millionaire, travelling
incognito; what was more surprising was that, when the cab stopped
before a door in Hare Court and Mr. Van Torp received his valise from
the roof of the vehicle, he gave the man half-a-crown, and said it was
'all right.'

'Now, my man,' he observed, 'you've not only got an extra shilling,
to which you had no claim whatever, but you've had the pleasure of a
surprise which you could not have bought for that money.'

The cabman grinned as he touched his hat and drove away, and Mr. Van
Torp took his valise in one hand and his umbrella in the other and
went up the dark stairs. He went up four flights without stopping
to take breath, and without so much as glancing at any of the names
painted in white letters on the small black boards beside the doors on
the right and left of each landing.

The fourth floor was the last, and though the name on the left had
evidently been there a number of years, for the white lettering was of
the tint of a yellow fog, it was still quite clear and legible.

MR.I. BAMBERGER.

That was the name, but the millionaire did not look at it any more
than he had looked at the others lower down. He knew them all by
heart. He dropped his valise, took a small key from his pocket, opened
the door, picked up his valise again, and, as neither hand was free,
he shut the door with his heel as he passed in, and it slammed behind
him, sending dismal echoes down the empty staircase.

The entry was almost quite dark, for it was past six o'clock in the
afternoon, late in March, and the sky was overcast; but there was
still light enough to see in the large room on the left into which Mr.
Van Torp carried his things.

It was a dingy place, poorly furnished, but some one had dust