Yes, he did note that old-fashioned mansion, in a wide street, too--it must have been a wide street to have allowed for so great a distance between the kerb and the two steps up from the pavement; and the house stood back, too, some distance. That was something, but a chill of despair came over him as he felt that these features applied to thousands of houses. Still, it was old-fashioned, and the hall was wide, just such a house as he would find in Bloomsbury. "Or Westminster," he muttered. "But the cabman was told to drive to Chelsea. A blind to confuse me, on the chance that I did not notice when I was brought there that night. "Bloomsbury or Westminster," he said to himself; "and chance or instinct may help me," he mused, as, feeble as was the clue, he felt that it was something to act upon, something to give him work that might deaden the wild excitement. He set off at once in the direction of the old-fashioned, grim-looking streets half a mile east of where he had stood thinking, ending by taking a passing cab, for he felt faint and bathed in a cold perspiration, and being driven slowly through street and square till long after daylight, and then home, sick at heart in the despondent feeling which came over him. "It's hopeless--impossible," he said to himself, as he wearily let himself in with his latch-key, while the cabman drove slowly off, saying-- "Not bad, as things go. Talk about seeing life, I think we kebbies do. Why, that chap must be about cracked." As Chester threw his overcoat on a chair in the hall, a slight rustling on the stairs took his attention. "Watched!" he said to himself, while turning into his consulting-room, feeling convinced that either Laura or his aunt had been listening for his return. "They must think me mad," he said, and after a pause, "are they right?" He was calmer now, and his mind running in this direction, he could not help feeling there was a strange dash of insanity mingled with his actions since the night when he was called out, and that this last act of hunting through the streets for a house of whose location he was utterly ignorant seemed nearly the culminating point. "Yes, the height of folly," he said softly. "I must try and devise some means of finding her. Chance may help me. I can do no more now." He rose with the intention of going up to his bedroom, but the sun was now shining brightly, and he opened the shutters before returning to his seat to try and think out some clue which he could follow up. The light which flooded the room seemed to brighten his intellect, and in spite of the use to which he had put the latter part of the past night, his head felt cool and clear.