and late employer."

Readers of the agony column were getting tired of this advertisement.
It had appeared once a week for the last six months, and was getting
stale by this time.

The next advertisement was more recent, but still a trifle dull:--

"Gerard Forrester.

"If Gerard Forrester (son of the late Captain Forrester, of the--
Hussars) who was last heard of at Bolsover School, in October, 18--,
where he met with a serious accident, should see this, he is requested
to communicate with Messrs. Wilkins & Wilkins, Solicitors, Blank Street,
W.C., from whom he will hear something to his advantage. Any person
able to give satisfactory information leading to the discovery of the
said Gerard Forrester, or, in the event of his death, producing evidence
of his decease, will be liberally rewarded."

The third advertisement, in another column, appeared now for the first
time:--

"A young man, well educated, and a careful student of Bibliography, is
anxious for literary work. Searches made and extracts copied.--Apply,
J., 28a, Storr Alley, W.C."

It would have puzzled any ordinary observer to detect in these three
appeals anything to connect them together. Jeffreys, however, glancing
down the columns of the borrowed paper for a sight of his own
advertisement, started and turned pale as his eye fell first on his own
name, then on Forrester's.

It was like a conspiracy to bewilder and baffle him at the moment when
hope seemed to be returning. He had convinced himself that his one
chance was to break with every tie which bound him to his old life, and
to start afresh from the lowest step of all. And here, at the outset,
there met him two calls from that old life, both of which it was hard to
resist. Mr Rimbolt, he decided to resist at all hazards. He still
shuddered as he recalled the stiff rustle of a certain silk dress in
Clarges Street, and preferred his present privations a hundredfold.
Even the thought of Percy, and the library, and Mr Rimbolt's goodness,
could not efface that one overpowering impression.

The other advertisement perplexed and agitated him more. Who was this
unknown person on whose behalf Messrs. Wilkins & Wilkins were seeking
information respecting young Forrester? It might be Scarfe, or Mr
Frampton, or possibly some unheard-of relative, interested in the
disposal of the late gallant officer's effects. He could not assist the
search. The little he knew was probably already known to the