"I wonder whether he will know me again," muttered Gerald to himself, as he walked down the main street of Pembridge on his way to Mr. Kelvin's office. "There was a little about him that I liked, and a great deal that I didn't like. His joviality was merely on the surface; it had no foundation in his disposition. It was a mere will-o'-the-wisp, flickering fitfully over the darker depths of his character. Me he tolerated as one tolerates a droll when tired of one's own company, and with nothing more serious to do. For the time being he even made believe to be a Bohemian himself. It was a phase of character that he had rarely encountered before, and for forty-eight hours it fascinated him; forty-eight hours later he would have turned his back on it and me with a sneer. "It is indeed a strange chance that has brought us together again after so long a time! I will tell him neither my name nor my errand for a little while. I will go to him as the Jack Pomeroy in whose society he once spent three days of bad weather. I will even pretend to be hard up, and to stand in need of a helping-hand. Probably he will order me out of the office; perchance he will ask me to dinner and put a sovereign into my hand at parting. It will be time enough to tell him my real business after I have put him to the test. Besides which, by concealing my identity for a little while, I may perhaps be able to glean some information as to his reason for keeping back for so long a time the contents of the sealed packet from Eleanor." It was in pursuance of this idea that Gerald had put on for the nonce an older suit of clothes than common, and had locked up in his portmanteau at the hotel his watch and chain and scarf-pin. He found Kelvin's office in due course, and made his way into the entrance-hall, and was there received by Mr. Piper.