"Well, it is so, Mr. Charles. Not but that missis has tried as long and as hard before now--and failed again." It was Monday evening before I could find time to go round to Lake's--and he did not come to me. He was at home, poring over some difficult law case by lamp-light. "Been in court all day, Charley," he cried. "Have not had a minute to spare for you." "About Tom?" I said, as I sat down. "You seemed to say that you had more unpleasantness to tell me." "Aye, about Tom," he replied, turning his chair to face me, and propping his right elbow upon his table. "Well, I fear Tom is in a bad way." "In health, you mean?" "I do. His cough is frightful, and he is more like a skeleton than a living being. I should say the illness has laid hold of his lungs." "Has he had a doctor?" "No. Asks how he is to have one. Says a doctor might (they were his own words) smell a rat. Doctors are not called in to the class of people lodging in that house unless they are dying: and it would soon be seen by any educated man that Tom is not of _their_ kind. My opinion is, that a doctor could not do him much good now," added Lake. He looked at me as he spoke; to see, I suppose, whether I took in his full meaning. I did--unhappily. "And what do you think he is talking of now, Charles?" returned Lake. "Of giving himself up." "Giving himself up! What, to justice?" Lake nodded. "You know what Tom Heriot is--not much like other people." "But why should he think of _that_? It would end everything." "I was on the point of asking him why," said Lake. "Whether I should have had a satisfactory answer, I cannot say; I should think he could not give one; but we were interrupted. Miss Betsy Lee came in." "Who? What?" I cried, starting from my chair. "The young lady you told me of who lives in Lambeth--Miss Betsy Lee. Sit down, Charley. She came over to bring him a pot of jelly." "Then he has let those people know where he is, Lake! Is he mad?" "Mad as to carelessness," assented Lake. "I tell you Tom Heriot's not like other people." "He will leave himself no chance." "She seems to be a nice, modest little woman," said Lake; "and I'll go bail her visit was quite honest and proper. She had made this jelly, she told Tom, and she and her father hoped it would serve to strengthen him, and her father sent his respects, and hopes to hear that Captain Strange was feeling better." "Well, Lake, the matter will get beyond me," I said in despair. "Only a word dropped, innocently, by these people in some dangerous quarter, and where will Tom be?" "That's just it," said Lake. "Policeman Wren is acquainted with them." "Did you leave the girl there?"