He caught the four-thirty express at Victoria, and got whirled away down. But he did not go to Mrs. Ellison’s house, nor yet to the Bedford Hotel, at which his friend Musselburgh was staying; he went to the Bristol, so as to keep himself a little out of observation. He was lucky enough to get a bedroom; and that was all he required; he did not even wait to look at it; he left the hotel and went wandering down the Marine Parade, which was now a mass of darkness lit up by innumerable points of yellow fire. Whither away then? If only he knew the street in which they had taken lodgings he could soon find out their daily habits, himself remaining unseen; but he had nothing beyond a vague recollection that they had spoken of some hill behind the town. However, Brighton, though now grown a big place, has a few leading thoroughfares in which everybody who is a visitor is pretty sure to be encountered sooner or later; and in this particular instance it was a good deal sooner than he could have dreamed of. He was walking along the seaward side of the Parade, with but a casual glance now and again at this or that passer-by, when suddenly, on the other side, at the corner of German Place, three figures came under the glare of a gas-lamp, and these he instantly recognised. Occasionally as they went on they became indistinguishable in the dusk; then again a gas-lamp would bring them into vivid relief—the tall and slim young girl, the square-set old man with the picturesque white hair, the young gentleman with the yellow cover-coat. They were talking together, and walking quickly, for the night was cold. "Yes," said Vincent to himself, in the bitterness of his heart, "I am displaced and superseded now. Without much difficulty, either. Quickly done. And no doubt he is taking them along to some restaurant. He will hear about the rocks and dales of Scotland—about the ballads and songs—perhaps he has subscribed for the new book. Then they will ask him to go home with them again; and Maisrie will take out her violin; and perhaps—perhaps she will sing ’_C’était une frégate, mon joli coeur de rose_—perhaps she will sing that for him, or any other of the Canadian songs, except the one. But surely, surely, Maisrie will not sing ’_La Claire Fontaine_’?" And then again he said to himself, with his eyes fixed on those three, but most of all on the young girl who walked with so light and joyous a step—