I wondered if, when he had held her hand in his, she was silly too. But, no doubt, she had freehold rights--or she thought that she had freehold rights--to what was much better worth the kissing. Never mind! But bide a wee! Days slipped by. At his next examination before the magistrates things began to look very black indeed against poor Tommy. I suppose the witnesses supposed they spoke the truth--so far as I could see, there was no possible cause for their wishing to do otherwise. But how they lied! Unconsciously, we will hope, and in their haste. It was becoming plainer and plainer that unless something, as yet wholly unsuspected, turned up in his favour, Tommy bade fair to hang. Well, I have seen a man hung on suspicion of stealing a horse, and directly he was hung the horse in question has turned up underneath the thief that really stole him. As Mr. Townsend observed, sometimes it seems as if the innocent were born to hang. If everything in life were certain, where would be the sport, and what would be the use of betting? It is the element of chance that makes the game! One afternoon something happened which struck me as being distinctly curious. It was after lunch. I was thinking of taking the air. I had just gone into the drawing-room for a moment, when there came a knocking at the door. "Now, who's that, I wonder?" I stopped the servant on her way to answer the door. "Eliza, let me know who it is before you say I'm in." I knew who it was directly she opened the door. It was no good telling him that I was not in. He did not even ask. He came himself to see. It was old Jack Haines, and with him was a stranger. It was the stranger who made me open my eyes. I had to stare. For he was--and yet he wasn't--the living, breathing image of my friend, the gentleman. He was Reginald Townsend, with a difference. And the difference--which was all the difference--was this: Reginald Townsend was a gentleman; this man was emphatically quite another kind of thing. And Jack Haines treated him as if he was quite another kind of thing. He treated him as if he had been nothing but a cur, and the man bore himself as if he was used to being treated like a cur. Mr. Haines strode into the middle of the room. He pointed to the stranger. "You see this creature?" It was an awkward sort of introduction. I scarcely knew what to make of it. The more I looked at him, the more I wondered who the man could be.