"Where?" asked Richard with animation. "Close to your works. He was looking in through the iron gates. After quitting Green's cottage, I crossed the waste ground, and saw him standing at the gates, under the middle gas-lamp. I had to visit a patient down by the church, and took the nearer way." "You did not recognize him?" "Not at all. He was a stranger to me. As I was passing, he turned and asked me whether he was going right for Whitborough. I pointed to the high-road and told him to keep straight on. Depend upon it, this was the same man." "What could he have been looking in at my gates for?" muttered Richard. "And what--for this is of more consequence--had he been getting out of Wilks?" "It seems rather curious altogether," remarked Dr. Rane. "I'll find this man," said Richard, as he got up to say goodnight; "I must find him. Thank you, Rane." But after his departure Oliver Rane did not settle to his work as before. A man, once interrupted, cannot always do so. All he did was to pace the room restlessly with bowed head, as a man in some uneasy dream. The candle burnt lower, the flame grew above the shade, throwing its light on his face, showing up its lines and angles. But it was not any brighter than when the green shade had cast over it its cadaverous hue. "Edmund North! Edmund North!" Did the words in all their piteous, hopeless appeal come from him? Or was it some supernatural cry in the air? CHAPTER X. PUT TO HIS CONSCIENCE. A fine morning in June. Lovely June; with its bright blue skies and its summer flowers. Walking about amidst his rose-trees, was Mr. North, a rake in his hand. He fancied he was gardening; he knew he was trifling. What did it matter?--his face looked almost happy. The glad sunshine was overhead, and he felt as free as a bird of the air. The anonymous letter, that had caused so much mischief, was passing into a thing of the past. In spite of Richard North's efforts to trace him out, the writer remained undiscovered. Timothy Wilks was the chief sufferer, and bitterly resentful thereon. To have been openly accused of having sent it by at least six persons out of every dozen acquaintances he met, disturbed the mind and curdled the temper of ill-starred Timothy Wilks. As to the general public, they were beginning to forget all about the trouble--as it is in the nature of a faithless public to do. Only in the hearts of a few individuals did the sad facts remain in all their sternness; and of those, one was Jelly.