After some trouble he lighted on the right staircase. Raw and murky as the outer atmosphere might be, it was pure æther compared to that of the low-browed office into which the visitor first entered; at any hour or season of the year, you could fancy that room maintaining a good, steady, condensed dusk of its own, in which fog, and smoke, and dust, had about equal shares. Two clerks sat there, writing busily. The one nearest the door--a thick-set, sullen man, past middle age--looked up as Alan came in, and stretching out a grimy hand, said, in a dull, mechanical voice, "Your card, sir, if you please--Sir Alan Wyverne wishes to see Mr. Humphrey." It was evidently the formula of reception in that ominous ante-chamber. The other clerk had not lifted his head when the door opened; but he started violently when he heard the name, so as nearly to upset the inkstand in which he chanced to be dipping his pen, and turned round with a sort of terror on his haggard, ruined face. It might have been a very handsome face once, but the wrinkled, flaccid flesh had fallen away round the hollow temples and from under the heavy eyes; the complexion was unhealthy, pale, and sodden; the features pinched and drawn, to deformity; the lines on the forehead were like trenches, and the abundant dark hair was, not sprinkled, but streaked and patched, irregularly, with grey. But, at the first glance, Wyverne recognised the face of a very old friend; he recognised it the more easily because, when he saw it last, it wore almost the same wild, scared look--on the memorable Derby day when "Cloanthus" swept past the stand, scarcely extended, the two leading favourites struggling vainly to reach his quarters. All his self-command was needed to enable him to suppress the exclamation that sprang to his lips; but he rarely made a mistake when it was a question of tact or delicacy. He followed his conductor into the next room, silently; it chanced to be vacant at that moment; then Alan laid his hand on the clerk's shoulder, as he stood with averted eyes, shaking like an aspen, and said, in tones carefully lowered-- "My God! Hugh Crichton--you here?" "Hush," the other answered, in a lower whisper still; "that's not my name now. You wouldn't spoil my last chance, if you could help it? If you want to see me, wait five minutes after you leave this place, and I'll come to you in the square." "I'll wait, if it's an hour," Wyverne said, and so passed into the inner room without another word. His business was soon done; even Humphrey and Gliddon could find no pretext for detaining clients who came with money in their hand. Alan did not exchange a glance with either of the occupants of the clerks'-room as he went out; he breathed more freely when he was in chill March air again. As he walked up and down the opposite side of the square, which was nearly deserted, his thoughts were very pitiful and sad.