'I cannot understand, Checkley,' said Mr. Dering with emphasis, 'the reason for this display of excitement. Why should she not tell me or anybody else? Do you suppose that my ward is doing anything clandestine? She has told me that she is acquainted with this man. She asserts further--that we have made a great mistake about him. What she means, I cannot understand. She says, in fact, that this gentleman is a perfectly honourable person. It is possible that he has deceived her. It is also possible that the name of Edmund Gray has been wrongfully used in the papers which belong to the case. Certainly it was an Edmund Gray who endorsed the first cheque; and an Edmund Gray having an address at 22 South Square whose name is connected with the later business. Well, we shall see presently.--When do you take out the warrant for the arrest of this man? By the way, Elsie Arundel implores me not to allow that step. When are you going to do it?' 'This morning, I was going to do it. Everything is ready--but----' 'But what?' 'I can't do it now.' 'The man is clean gone off his head.' 'Leave it till to-morrow--only to-morrow, or Monday. Before then, something is certain to turn up. Oh! certain sure it is. Something must turn up.' 'There is certainly something that you are keeping behind, Checkley. Well--wait till Monday. To-day is Saturday. He can't do very much mischief between this and Monday.--That's enough about Edmund Gray. Now, here is another point, to which I want a direct answer from you. My brother asserts, I believe on your authority, that Athelstan Arundel has been living in a low and profligate manner in some London suburb, and that he was in rags and poverty early this year. What is your authority for this?' 'Why, I heard him confess--or not deny--that he'd been living in Camberwell in bad company. It was at the _Salutation_ I heard it. He didn't see me. I'd got my head behind a paper. He never denied it.' 'Humph!--And about the rags?' 'I don't know anything about the rags.' 'Very likely there is as much foundation for the one charge as for the other. Three or four years ago, he was in America, to my knowledge. He wrote to me from America. I now learn, on the authority of his sister, that he only came back a month ago, and that he has been and is still in the service of an American paper. What have you got to say to that?' 'Nothing. I don't feel as if I could say anything. It's all turned upsy down. That won't do, I suppose, no more than the rest.' 'But, my friend, if that is true, your theory of conspiracy and confederacy, which you took so much pains to build up, falls to the ground as far as Athelstan is concerned.' 'Yes.-- Oh! I haven't nothing to say.' It was a mark of the trouble which possessed him that his language reverted to that of his young days, before he had learned the art of correct speech from the copying of legal documents. He preserved the same attitude with bent head and hanging hands, a sad and pitiful object.