"I say, old fellow, how jolly bad you look to-night!" said Downes Dyson as he proceeded to shuffle the cards. "Yes, I'm altogether out of sorts. These horrible English winters are enough to kill anyone." Captain Lennox was indeed glad that Mr. Norris had gone, and he would have been well pleased were he never going to see him again. He had contracted a great dislike for him, for which he could give no reasonable account to himself; a sort of dread which had grown deeper and deeper as the evening had advanced. And he could not shake it off. His dreams that night were troubled ones: through the whole of them the tall, gaunt figure of Mr. Norris loomed ominously. Even in his sleep he felt that he hated him. Next morning the Captain rose unrefreshed, and started by an early train for London. He was thinking that he needed a different air from the English air just as greatly as his sister did. It was at the Rose and Crown that Mr. Conroy stayed when at Nullington. He and Norris had once or twice met on the stairs, and passed each other as strangers. On the evening above-mentioned, however, when Mr. Conroy was just about to go to rest, a tap came to the door of his sitting-room, and Norris appeared at it. "I thought I'd just see whether you had retired yet, sir, having a word to say to you." "Ah, is it you, Mr. Meath?" said Conroy. "Come in. You have some news for me, I presume. Sit down. What is it?" "The news I have at present, sir, is this: that I have made some very curious discoveries indeed respecting the antecedents of the gentleman who goes by the name of Captain Lennox." "_Goes_ by the name! Is it not his real name?" "Well, sir, he has gone by a lot of names in his time, but which of them's his real one is best known to himself." From the breast-pocket of his coat, Mr. Meath drew a small memorandum-book, and opened it. "Ten years ago," he began, "Lennox was passing under the name of Blaydon. At that time he was tuner to a large pianoforte firm in London. This situation he lost because a number of valuable articles were missed from different houses to which he was sent. We next hear of him under the name of Perke, as book-keeper at a fashionable hotel in Mayfair. Here also some robberies were perpetrated, but whether by him or not I am not in a position to assert. In any case, he lost his situation before long. After this he appears to have gone abroad for two or three years, and was seen in Paris, Brussels, Homburg, and other places. In some way or other, probably by successful gambling, he seems to have feathered his nest pretty considerably. We next find him at Cheltenham." "At Cheltenham!" involuntarily exclaimed Conroy.