rd!" he exclaimed. "This is a most unexpected
pleasure--most unexpected! Such a pity, too, that we only posted a draft
for your allowance a few days ago. Dear me--you'll forgive my saying
so--how well you look!"

Dominey smiled as he accepted an easy chair.

"Africa's a wonderful country, Mangan," he remarked, with just that
faint note of patronage in his tone which took his listener back to the
days of his present client's father.

"It--pardon my remarking it--has done wonderful things for you, Sir
Everard. Let me see, it must be eleven years since we met."

Sir Everard tapped the toes of his carefully polished brown shoes with
the end of his walking stick.

"I left London," he murmured reminiscently, "in April, nineteen hundred
and two. Yes, eleven years, Mr. Mangan. It seems queer to find myself in
London again, as I dare say you can understand."

"Precisely," the lawyer murmured. "I was just wondering--I think that
last remittance we sent to you could be stopped. I have no doubt you
will be glad of a little ready money," he added, with a confident smile.

"Thanks, I don't think I need any just at present," was the amazing
answer. "We'll talk about financial affairs a little later on."

Mr. Mangan metaphorically pinched himself. He had known his present
client even during his school days, had received a great many visits
from him at different times, and could not remember one in which the
question of finance had been dismissed in so casual a manner.

"I trust," he observed chiefly for the sake of saying something, "that
you are thinking of settling down here for a time now?"

"I have finished with Africa, if that is what you mean," was the
somewhat grave reply. "As to settling down here, well, that depends a
little upon what you have to tell me."

The lawyer nodded.

"I think," he said, "that you may make yourself quite easy as regards
the matter of Roger Unthank. Nothing has ever been heard of him since
the day you left England."

"His--body has not been found?"

"Nor any trace of it."

There was a brief silence. The lawyer looked hard at Dominey, and
Dominey searchingly back again at the lawyer.

"And Lady Dominey?" the former asked at length.

"Her ladyship's condition is, I believe, unchanged," was the somewhat
guarded reply.

"If the circumstances are favourable," Dominey continued, after another
moment's pause, "I think it very likely that I may decide to settle down
at Dominey Hall."