“Say I'm coming; I'll be with him in an instant,” said be, as he hurriedly pitched some clothes into his portmanteau. Now it is but fair to own that this demand upon his time came at an inconvenient moment; he had run up to town by an early train, and was bent on going back by the next departure. During his absence, no letter of any kind from his agent O'Reardon had reached him, and, growing uneasy and impatient at this silence, he had come up to learn the reason. At the office he heard that O'Reardon had not been there for the last few days. It was supposed he was ill, but there was no means of ascertaining the fact; none knew his address, as, they said, “he was seldom in the same place for more than a week or two.” Sewell had a profound distrust of his friend; indeed, the only reason for confiding in him at all was, that it was less O'Reardon's interest to be false than true. Since Fossbrooke's arrival, however, matters might have changed. They might have met and talked together. Had Sir Brook seduced the fellow to take service under him? Had he wormed out of him certain secrets of his (Sewell's) life, and thus shown how useful he might be in running him to earth? This was far from unlikely. It seemed the easiest and most natural way of explaining the fellow's absence. At the same time, if such were the case, would he not have taken care to write to him? Would not his letters, calling for some sort of reply, some answer to this or that query, have given him a better standing-ground with his new master, showing how far he possessed Sewell's confidence, and how able he was to make his treason to him effective? Harassed by these doubts, and fearing he knew not what of fresh troubles, he had passed a miserable week in the country. Debt and all its wretched consequences were familiar enough to him. His whole life had been one long struggle with narrow means, and with the expedients to meet expenses he should never have indulged in. He had acquired, together with a recklessness, a sort of self-reliance in these emergencies which positively seemed to afford him a species of pleasure, and made him a hero to himself by his successes; but there were graver troubles than these on his heart, and with the memory of these Fossbrooke was so interwoven that to recall them was to bring him up before him.