"Did he ever know," he muttered once, "that the day would come when I should be looking eagerly for his portrait--did he know that, and did some instinct prompt him never to have a record made of his craven face? And yet, he shall not escape me! Yet, I will find him!" Later in the evening, when he had eaten sparingly of the dinner that had been prepared for him, and had drunk still more sparingly of the choice wine set before him, confining himself almost entirely to water, he sent for the housekeeper and said: "I think I have seen everything of importance here in the way of art, and Lord Penlyn is to be congratulated on his treasures. Some of the pictures are very valuable." "They are thought to be so, sir," the woman answered. In her own mind, and after a conversation with another of the head servants, she had put Señor Guffanta down as some foreign picture-dealer, or _connoisseur_, who had received permission from her master to inspect the collection at the "Chase," and, consequently, she considered him entitled to give an opinion, especially as that opinion was a favourable one. "They are thought to be so, sir." "Yes; no doubt. But I have seen them all now, and I will leave to-morrow." "Very well, sir." "So, if you please, I will have that young man to drive me to the station. I will go by the train that he told me Mr. Smerdon travelled by." That night, as Señor Guffanta paced up and down the avenue leading to the house and smoked his cigarettes, or as he tossed upon his bed, he confessed that he was no nearer to his task. "Everything fails me," he said; "and yet, a week ago, I would have sworn by San Pedro that I should have caught him by now. There is only one chance--one hope left. If that fails me too, then I must lose all courage. Will it fail me?--will it fail?" "It is strange, too," he said once to himself in the night, when, having been unable to sleep, he had risen and thrown his window open and was gazing from it, "that I cannot meet this man Smerdon, this man who believes that I shall fail--as, _por Dios!_ I almost now myself believe! Strange, also, that he should have left on the very day I came here. I should like to see him. It may be that I shall do so in London to-morrow." He left Occleve Chase at the time fixed, and by his liberality to the housekeeper and the other servants who had waited on him he entirely dispelled from their minds the idea that he was a picture-dealer. "I suppose he is one of those foreign swells, after all," the footman who had served him said to the housekeeper, as he pocketed the _douceur_ the Señor had given him; "there is plenty of 'em in London Society now." He reached the London terminus late in the afternoon, and bade the cabman he hired drive him to the Hôtel Lepanto; but, before half the journey to that house was accomplished, the driver found himself suddenly called on by his fare to stop, and to turn round and follow another cab going in the opposite direction.