Here, however, after an interval of rest and a strong brandy and soda, he managed to pull himself together, and to come to the conclusion that the doctor and Mrs Thompson _could_ not be mistaken, and that, consequently, the clerks _must_. He did not mention the subject again to them, however; and as the days went on, and nothing more was heard of the mysterious stranger’s visit, Mr Braggett put it altogether out of his mind. At the end of a fortnight, however, when he was thinking of something totally different, young Hewetson remarked to him, carelessly,— ‘Miss Cray was here again yesterday, sir. She walked in just as your cab had left the door.’ All the horror of his first suspicions returned with double force upon the unhappy man’s mind. ‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ he gasped, angrily, as soon as he could speak. ‘Don’t attempt to play any of your tricks on me, young man, or it will be the worse for you, I can tell you.’ ‘Tricks, sir!’ stammered the clerk. ‘I don’t know what you are alluding to. I am only telling you the truth. You have always desired me to be most particular in letting you know the names of the people who call in your absence, and I thought I was only doing my duty in making a point of ascertaining them—’ ‘Yes, yes! Hewetson, of course,’ replied Mr Braggett, passing his handkerchief over his brow, ‘and you are quite right in following my directions as closely as possible; only—in this case you are completely mistaken, and it is the second time you have committed the error.’ ‘Mistaken!’ ‘Yes!—as mistaken as it is possible for a man to be! Miss Cray _could_ not have called at this office yesterday.’ ‘But she did, sir.’ ‘Am I labouring under some horrible nightmare?’ exclaimed the publisher, ‘or are we playing at cross purposes? Can you mean the Miss Cray I mean?’ ‘I am speaking of Miss Charlotte Cray, sir, the author of “Sweet Gwendoline,”—the lady who has undertaken so much of our compilation the last two years, and who has a long nose, and wears her hair in curls. I never knew there was another Miss Cray; but if there are two, that is the one I mean.’ ‘Still I _cannot_ believe it, Hewetson, for the Miss Cray who has been associated with our firm died on the twenty-fifth of last month.’ ‘_Died_, sir! Is Miss Cray dead? Oh, it can’t be! It’s some humbugging trick that’s been played upon you, for I’d swear she was in this room yesterday afternoon, as full of life as she’s ever been since I knew her. She didn’t talk much, it’s true, for she seemed in a hurry to be off again, but she had got on the same dress and bonnet she was in here last, and she made herself as much at home in the office as she ever did. Besides,’ continued Hewetson, as though suddenly remembering something, ‘she left a note for you, sir.’ ‘A note! Why did you not say so before?’ ‘It slipped my memory when you began to doubt my word in that way, sir. But you’ll find it in the bronze vase. She told me to tell you she had placed it there.’