Your sister turned away. She sat--we both sat--for some time, so still that a bright-eyed squirrel came and peeped at us, stole a nut a few yards off, and scuttled away with it to Mrs. Squirrel and the little ones up in a tall sycamore hard by. I begged Miss Johnston to let me see the address once more, and I would pay a visit, friendly or medical, as the case might allow, to Mr. Charteris, on my way home to-night. "Thank you, Doctor Urquhart." I then rose and took leave, time being short. "Stay, one word if you please. In that visit, you will of course say, if inquired, that you learnt the address from Treherne Court. You will, name no other names?" "Certainly not." "But afterwards, you will write to me?" "I will." We shook hands, and I left her sitting there on the dead tree. I went on, wondering if anything would result from this curious combination of accidents: also, whether a woman's love, if cut off at the root, even like this tree, could be actually killed, so that nothing could revive it again. What think you, Theodora? But this trick of moralizing, caught from you, shall not be indulged. There is only time for the relation of bare facts. The train brought me to the opposite shore of our river, not half a mile's walk from Mr. Charteris's lodgings. They seemed "handsome lodgings" as he said--a tall new house, one of the many which, only half-built, or half-inhabited, make this Birkenhead such a dreary place. But it is improving, year by year--I sometimes think it may be quite a busy and cheerful spot by the time I take a house here, as I intend. You will like a hill-top, and a view of the sea. I asked for Mr. Charteris, and stumbled up the half-lighted stairs, into the wholly dark drawing-room. "Who the devil's there?" He was in hiding, you must remember, as indeed I ought to have done, and so taken the precaution first to send up my name--but I was afraid of non-admittance. When the gas was lit, his pale, unshaven, sallow countenance, his state of apparent illness and weakness, made me cease to regret having gained entrance, under any circumstances. Recognizing me, he muttered some apology. "I was asleep--I usually do sleep after dinner." Then recovering his confused faculties, he asked with some _hauteur_, "To what may I attribute the pleasure of seeing Doctor Urquhart? Are you, like myself, a mere bird of passage, or a resident in Liverpool?" "I am surgeon of ---------- gaol. "Indeed, I was not aware. A good appointment I hope? And what gaol did you say?" I named it again, and left the subject. If he chose to wrap himself in that thin cloak of deception, it was no business of mine to tear it off. Besides, one pities a ruined man's most petty pride.