The fourth morning, when Pinney went down into the hotel office at Quebec, after a trying night with his sick child and its anxious mother, he found Northwick sitting there. He seemed to Pinney a part of the troubled dream he had waked from. "Well, where under the sun, moon and stars have _you_ been?" he demanded, taking the chance that this phantasm might be flesh and blood. A gleam of gratified slyness lit up the haggardness of Northwick's face. "I've been at home--at Hatboro'." "Come off!" said Pinney, astounded out of the last remnant of deference he had tried to keep for Northwick. He stood looking incredulously at him a moment. "Come in to breakfast, and tell me about it. If I could only have it for a scoop--" Northwick ate with wolfish greed, and as the victuals refreshed and fortified him, he came out with his story, slowly, bit by bit. Pinney listened with mute admiration. "Well, sir," he said, "it's the biggest thing I ever heard of." But his face darkened. "I suppose you know it leaves me out in the cold. I came up here," he explained, "as the agent of your friends, to find you, and I did find you. But if you've gone and given the whole thing away, _I_ can't ask anything for my services." Northwick seemed interested, and even touched, by the hardship he had worked to Pinney. "They don't know where I am, now," he suggested. "Are you willing I should take charge of the case from this on?" asked Pinney. "Yes. Only--don't leave me," said Northwick, with tremulous dependence. "You may be sure I won't let you out of my sight again," said Pinney. He took a telegraphic blank from his breast pocket, and addressed it to Matt Hilary: "Our friend here all right with me at Murdock's Hotel." He counted the words to see that there were no more than ten; then he called a waiter, and sent the despatch to the office. "Tell 'em to pay it, and set it down against me. Tell 'em to rush it."