is thoughts, and suddenly, a most appalling sensation came
upon him. For a moment he had lost his identity. For a moment he was
neither Rochester nor Jones, but just a void between these two. For a
moment he could not tell which he was. For a moment he was neither. That
was the terrible part of the feeling. It was due to over taxation of the
brain in his extraordinary position, and to the intensive manner in
which he had been playing the part of Rochester. It lasted perhaps, only
a few seconds, for it is difficult to measure the duration of mental
processes, and it passed as rapidly as it had come.

Seeing a bar he entered it, and a small glass of brandy closed the
incident and made him forget it. He asked the way to Coutts' Bank, which
in 1692 was situated at the "Three Crowns" in the Strand, next door to
the Globe Tavern, and which still holds the same position in the world
of commerce, and nearly the same in the world of bricks and mortar.

He reached the door of the bank and was about to enter, when something
checked him. It was the thought that he would have to endorse the cheque
with Rochester's signature.

He had copied it so often that he felt competent to make a fair
imitation, but he had begun life in a bank and he knew the awful eye a
bank has for a customer's signature. His signature--at least
Rochester's--must be well known at Coutts'. It would never do to put
himself under the microscope like that, besides, and this thought only
came to him now, it might be just as well to have his money in some
place unknown to others. Collins and all that terrible family knew that
he was banking at Coutts', events might arise when it would be very
necessary too for him to be able to lay his hands on a secret store of
money.

He had passed the National Provincial Bank in the Strand, the name
sounded safe and he determined to go there.

He reached the bank, sent his name into the manager, and was at once
admitted. The manager was a solid man, semi-bald, with side whiskers,
and an air of old English business respectability delightful in these
new and pushing days, he received the phantom of the Earl of Rochester
with the respect due to their mutual positions.

Jones, between Coutts' and the National Provincial, had done a lot of
thinking. He foresaw that even if he were to give in a passable
imitation of Rochester's signature, all cheques signed in future would
have to tally with that signature. Now a man's handwritin