He did not possess a Clergy List. No letter came from Mrs. Hillmer, so he walked across the Park to his club in Pall Mall to consult the appropriately bound black and white volume which gives reference to the many degrees of the Church of England. Septimus Childe was a distinctive, though simple, name. And it was not there. There was not a Childe with a final "e" in the whole book. Without that important letter, as his informant might be mistaken, there were several. Close scrutiny of each man's designation and duties convinced him that though any of these might be one of the particular Childe's children, none answered to the description of the gentleman he sought. Of course, he could always apply to Sir Charles Dyke, but he dreaded approaching the grief-stricken baronet on this matter. Now there was no help for it. The barrister was beginning to feel impatient at the constant difficulties which barred progress in each direction. After all, it was a small thing merely to ask his friend if he ever knew a reverend gentleman named Childe. Bruce was sure that Sir Charles would not be acquainted with Mr. Childe, and also with the fact that the Putney house had served as his school, for it would be strange beyond credence if it were so that he had not mentioned it. The weather was still clear and cold, and a wintry sun made walking pleasant. Claude, on quitting his club, set out again on foot. He crossed St. James's Square, Jermyn Street, and Piccadilly, and made his way to Oxford Street up New Bond Street. Not often did he frequent these fashionable thoroughfares, and he had an excellent reason. When walking, he was given to abstraction, and seldom saw his acquaintances if he encountered them in unusual quarters. He would thus cut dead a woman at whose house he had dined the previous evening, or, when he was in practice at the Bar, fail to notice the salutation of his own leader. To Claude himself this short-coming was intolerable; consciousness of it when in the West made him the most alert man in the crowd to note anybody whom he knew, except on the rare occasions when he forgot his failing. This morning Bond Street was pleasantly full. People were beginning to return to town. Parliament re-assembled in a few days, and he passed many who were on his visiting list. Outside a well-known costumer's he saw a brougham, into which a lady had just been assisted by the commissionaire. It is no uncommon thing to recognize an acquaintance by the color of his horse, or the peculiar cut of the coachman's whiskers. This time Bruce knew the driver as well as the equipage, but the lady was not Mrs. Hillmer. Instantly he was at the door, with his hat lifted; he assumed an expression of polite regret as he saw Dobson, the maid, in her mistress's place. "Sorry," he said, "I knew the carriage, and thought that Mrs. Hillmer was inside. She is well, I trust." "Not very, sir," answered the maid with an angry pout. "Indeed, what is the matter?"