On the same afternoon as Hester was enjoying the many-sided pleasures of her day at Ennore, Alfred Rayner was stepping from the train at the trim little railway station of Puranapore. He looked less brisk than ordinarily, and did not seem disposed to claim the simultaneous attentions of all the native officials in his usual self-assertive manner, but stood glancing up and down the platform with an undecided air. In fact the green flag had been waved, and the train by which he had arrived had started on its onward way, but still he seemed in no hurry to proceed. Presently the station-master approached him, and salaaming, inquired which Dorai he was on his way to visit, no carriage having appeared from the English cantonment. Mr. Rayner was in a very uncommunicative mood. He did not disclaim any purpose of visiting one of the English residents, nor did he indicate whither he was bound. Suddenly he picked up his bag, for on second thoughts he had dismissed his dressing-boy at the Madras station, and strode off on foot, much to the surprise of the station-master, who was a comparative stranger and did not even know him by sight. The scowling Hindu ticket-collector quickly enlightened him. "That's La'yer Rayner that done bobbery about that mosque," he remarked, and proceeded to denounce the barrister in no flattering terms, prophesying that he had reappeared to hatch fresh mischief with the plotting Zynool. The object of these unfavourable comments was meanwhile making his way among the narrow crowded streets of the old town, and in one of the unloveliest of these he stood glancing up at a house, the front aspect of which was little more than a blank wall, its peeling chunam giving it a dreary, weather-stained appearance. Its few slits of windows looked down on the street like pairs of suspicious eyes, and its low door seemed as if it could not admit anyone of even average stature, though it gave daily ingress and egress to the ponderous figure of Zynool Sahib. At this low portal Mr. Rayner stood, tentatively looking up at the narrow windows. "Perhaps I should have wired to announce my coming! One never knows whether an impromptu descent or not is best with these beggars. If I had warned Zynool, it would only have given him a loophole for escape if he had a mind for any reason to dodge me. His letter showed he was mad over his failure to annex that idiot, Cheveril, and he seemed actually to blame me for it!"