Hurst dipped his pen slowly into the ink. "Nobody ever knew. He was lodging in the house, and went away mysteriously the same evening. Helstonleigh got to say in joke that there must have been two Godfrey Pitmans. The people of the house swore through thick and thin that the real Godfrey Pitman left at half-past four o'clock and went away by rail at five; others saw him quit the house at dark, and depart by the eight o'clock train. It got to a regular dispute." "But had Godfrey Pitman anything to do with Mr. Ollivera?" "Not he." "Then where was the good of bringing him up?" cried Roland. "I am only telling you of the different interests that were brought to bear upon it. It _was_ an affair, that death was!" The entrance of Mr. Frank Greatorex broke up the colloquy, recalling the clerks to their legitimate work. But the attention of one of them had become so absorbed that it was with difficulty he could get himself back again to passing life. And that one was Mr. Brown. CHAPTER X. GOING INTO SOCIETY. The year was growing a little later; the evenings were lengthening, and the light of the setting sun, illumining the west with a golden radiance, threw some of its cheering brightness even on the streets and houses of close, smoky London. It shone on the person of the Reverend Henry William Ollivera, as he sat at home, taking his frugal meal, a tea-dinner. The room was a good one, and well furnished in a plain way. The table had been drawn towards one of the windows, open to the hum of the street; the rosewood cabinet at the back was handsome with its sheet of plate-glass and its white marble top; the chairs and sofa were covered with substantial cloth, the pier-glass over the mantlepiece reflected back bright ornaments. Mr. Ollivera was of very simple habits, partly because he really cared little how he lived, partly because the scenes of distress and privation he met with daily in his ministrations read him a lesson that he was not slow to take. How could he pamper himself up with rich food, when so many within a stone's throw were pining for want of bread? His landlady, Mrs. Jones, gave him sound lectures on occasion, telling him to his face that he was trying to break down. Sometimes she prepared nice dinners in spite of him: a fowl, or some other luxury, and Mr. Ollivera smiled and did not say it was not enjoyed. The district of his curacy was full of poor; poverty, vice, misery reigned, and _would_ reign, in spite of what he could do. Some of the worst phases of London life were ever before him. The great problem, "What shall be done with these?" arose to his mind day by day. He had his scripture readers; he had other help; but destitution both of body and mind reared itself aloft like a many-headed monster, defying all solution. Sometimes Mr. Ollivera did not come in to dinner at all, but took a mutton-chop with his tea; as he was doing now.