"Then you've not come down to say he is found?" "No: only to ask you where you sent him that night, that he may be." When the explanation was complete, Roland discovered that he had had his journey for nothing, and would have done well to take the opinion of Hamish Channing. Every tittle of information that Mr. Galloway was able to give, he had already written to Hamish: not a thought, not a supposition, but he had imparted it in full. As to Roland's idea, that business might have carried Arthur to dishonest neighbourhoods in London, Mr. Galloway negatived it positively. "He had none to do for me in such places, and I'm sure he'd not of his own." Roland sat pulling at his whiskers, feeling very gloomy. In his sanguine temperament, he had been buoying himself with a hope that grew higher and higher all the way down: so that when he arrived at Mr. Galloway's he had nearly persuaded himself that--if Arthur, in person, was not there, news of him would be. Hence the loud and impatient door-summons. "I know he is at the bottom of the Thames! I did so hope you could throw some light on it that you might have forgotten to tell, Mr. Galloway." "Forgotten!" returned Mr. Galloway, slightly agitated. "If I remembered my sins, young man, as well as I remember all connected with him, I might be the better for it. His disappearance has made me ill; that's what it has done; and I'm not sure but it will kill me. When a steady, honourable, God-fearing young man like Arthur Channing, whose heart I verily believe was as much in heaven as earth; when such a man disappears in this mysterious manner at night in London, leaving no information of his whereabouts, and who cannot be traced or found, nothing but the worst is to be apprehended. I believe Arthur Churning to have been murdered for the large sum of money he had about him." Mr. Galloway seized his handkerchief, and rubbed his hot face. The nightcap was pushed a little further off in the process. It was the precise view Roland had taken; and, to have it confirmed by Mr. Galloway's, seemed to drive all hope out of him for good. "And I never had the opportunity of atoning to him for the past, you see, Mr. Galloway! It will stick in my memory for life, like a pill in the throat. I'd rather have been murdered myself ten times over." "I gave my consent to his going with reluctance," said Mr. Galloway, seeming to repeat the fact for his own benefit rather than for Roland's. "What did it signify whether Charles was met in London, or not? if he could find his way to London from Marseilles alone, surely he might find it to Helstonleigh! Our busy time, the November audit, is approaching: but it was not that thought that swayed me against it, but an inward instinct. Arthur said he had not had a holiday for two years; he said there was business wanting the presence of one of us in London: all true, and I yielded. And this is what has come of it!"