Melun, in obedience to his instructions, had called at Walter's Hotel on the second day following the arrival of the _Gigantic_, but having no use for him then, and desiring to see a little of London before he proceeded to investigate the mysteries of Melun's life, Westerham told the urbane, if somewhat sinister, captain that he did not require his presence. Westerham, indeed, informed Melun pretty curtly that he would send for him when he needed him. The next five days were spent by Westerham very quietly. The best of tailors that Dunton could recommend were hard at work building innumerable suits for Mr. James Robinson, whose magnificent motor car was at least a guarantee of the soundness of his banking account. When he had possessed himself of such clothes as he required in order to live as James Robinson, Esq., of Bruton Street, plain Mr. Robinson, of Walter's Hotel, informed the proprietor there that he was going into the country, and for two days Westerham lived in his new quarters. Then he made excuses to the correct, soft-footed, and soft-spoken valet with whom Dunton had provided him, and went back to live at Walter's. As a matter of fact he rather preferred the existence which he was able to follow when he wore cheaper clothes and walked a humbler path of life. It was not without distinctly good reason that he set himself systematically to explore London—not the London commonly known to the average sight-seer, but the London of the obscure Londoner,—the London of distant suburbs, the London of mean streets, the London of the docks and slums and of wastes of respectable spaces. In the course of his peregrinations Westerham found himself one night at about the hour of ten wandering in a particularly ill-lit and remote corner of Hyde Park. He was walking lightly over the wet grass with almost silent feet. Indeed, as he swung gently forward, his mind was far away on the soft prairie land that he seemed to have left years and years before. So occupied was he with his thoughts that he came near to walking into a couple engaged in a heated controversy beneath a tree. When, however, he beheld them, he came to a sudden standstill, all his senses alive, his quick intuition telling him he was in the presence of some matter of moment. He did not like the look of the thick-set greasy man who faced the girl. Westerham could read a man's character as easily from his back as he could from his face, and he had instantly a great distrust of the fat man's aspect. The girl he could not see, but it was with some unaccountable notion of doing her a service, and not with the remotest idea of eavesdropping, that he stepped softly and silently to the further side of a tree trunk. Then he heard the girl's voice saying in low, quiet, earnest accents: