The Marquis of Twickenham would just go out one morning, and Mr. James Merrett would come home. This time for good. He'd announce that he had had enough of leaving wife and children, and that he had therefore resolved in future, wherever he went, to take them with him. I guessed that Mary would be pleased. So Little Olive Street would soon be a thing of the past, and presently a united family would be found in quite another quarter. It was a pretty programme, and I was bent on carrying it out. Foster's notion of a new environment wasn't bad, but I was vain enough to think that mine was better. I was going to learn from the best of all teachers, experience, what being married to the woman you're in love with really means. I didn't unduly hurry, but I lost no time. I made all the arrangements I could think of; then I looked at them once or twice all round, to see that they were made. It seemed to me they were. Then one evening his lordship stepped out of Twickenham House into St. James's Square, bent on taking another excursion of some length. I had said nothing to any one in the house. The servants did not even know that I was going out. My goings and comings had nothing to do with them. My notion was that I would send Foster, say, from Paris, a letter containing no address. In it I would inform him that I was about to act upon his hint, and seek a fresh environment. How long the search would continue I could not say. Therefore I should be obliged if he would see that during my absence certain arrangements, which I would name, were carried out, so that my affectionate brother might not think it necessary to have me buried by proxy a second time. I was conscious as I left the house that it was a clear and pleasant evening, and that the sky was peopled with many stars. At the foot of the steps I paused and looked about me. It was not my intention to go straight to Little Olive Street, but to spend that night, and probably the following day, in transacting certain little business matters of my own. As I stood there, my feelings were those of the boy who quits, for ever, a hated school. A whimsical mood came over me. Wheeling round, I shook my fist at the door, which had just been closed. 'I hope I'll never come through you again. The Marquis slips his skin!' Turning, I moved along the pavement. I hadn't gone a dozen yards when I came upon a man who advanced from the direction in which I was going. At sight, each, on the instant, recognised the other. We both stopped dead. It was my double--the man with a tongue whom I had seem at M'Croskay's in San Francisco. His lordship's very own self. Simon Pure. BOOK IV.--THE SINNER THE AUTHOR THROWS LIGHT UPON AN INTERESTING SITUATION CHAPTER XXIX BACK TO THE WORLD