"Then, dear," answered Ermine softly, "it will still be the right time." The morning after that conversation was waning into afternoon, when Rudolph, passing up Paternoster Row, heard hurried steps behind him, and immediately felt a grasp on his shoulder--a grasp which seemed as if it had no intention of letting him go in a hurry. He looked up in some surprise, into the face of the man whose intent gaze and disconnected words had so roused his attention a month earlier. "Caught you at last!" were the first words of his captor. "Now don't fall to and fight me, but do me so much grace as to tell me your name in a friendly way. You would, if you knew why I ask you." The kindliness and honest sincerity of the speaker's face were both so apparent, that Rudolph smiled as he said-- "Suppose you tell me yours?" "I have no cause to be ashamed of it. My name is Stephen, and men call me `le Bulenger.'" "Have they always called you so?" "Are you going to catechise me?" laughed Stephen. "No--you are right there. Fifteen years ago they called me `Esueillechien.' Now, have you heard my name before?" "I cannot say either `yes' or `no,' unless you choose to come home with me to see my mother. She may know you better than I can." "I'll come home with you fast enough," Stephen was beginning, when the end of the sentence dashed his hopes down. "`To see your--mother!' That won't do, young man. I have looked myself on her dead face--or else you are not the man for whom I took you." "I can answer you no questions till you do so," replied Rudolph firmly. "Come, then, have with you," returned Stephen, linking his arm in that of the younger man. "Best to make sure. I shall get to know something, if it be only that you are not the right fellow." "Now?" asked Rudolph, rather disconcertedly. He was not in the habit of acting in this ready style about everything that happened, but required a little while to make up his mind to a fresh course. "Have you not found out yet," said Stephen, marching him into Saint Paul's Churchyard, "that _now_ is the only time a man ever has for anything?" "Well, you don't let the grass grow under your feet," observed Rudolph, laughing. Being naturally of a rather dreamy and indolent temperament, he was not accustomed to getting over the ground with the rapidity at which Stephen led him. "There's never time to waste time," was the sententious reply. In a shorter period than Rudolph would have thought possible, they arrived at the corner of Mark Lane. "You live somewhere about here," said Stephen coolly, "but I don't know where exactly. You'll have to show me your door." "You seem to know a great deal about me," answered Rudolph in an amused tone. "This is my door. Come in." Stephen followed him into the jeweller's shop, where Countess sat waiting for customers, with the big white dog lying at her feet.