Moreover, the man Gossett, who was prepared to swear that Gerard had asked him to take one of the cheques to be cashed, was proved to be a man against whom nothing was known except that he occasionally drank to excess; he lived simply in lodgings off the Tottenham Court Road, and had not been known to indulge in any expense since the date of the cashing of the cheque. His story was that he had long known Gerard Angmering by sight but not by name, through frequenting the same luncheon-bar. He had often spoken to him, though he had no idea that he belonged to the Bank of the Old Country and Colonies. When the young man had asked him to cash a cheque for him at that bank, Gossett asserted that he agreed to do so, without any thought of harm; that he brought the money in gold and notes to Gerard, who was waiting for him outside Stott’s, the luncheon-bar in question. He further alleged that he had received nothing for his trouble, and that he had thought nothing further of it until he was challenged by one of the senior clerks in the bank, who happened to meet him in the street in that neighbourhood, as the man who had cashed the cheque. That was the whole sum and substance of the information at the disposal of both sides. The cheque had been made payable to Joseph Partridge, “to order,” and the amount was seven hundred and sixty-five pounds. This had been paid in gold and notes, but not one of the notes had been traced. Gerard denied the whole story of the man Gossett as a fabrication from beginning to end. But there was this fact against him, that, whereas there was no sign whatever that Gossett had been spending money freely or that he betted or was addicted to suspicious company, Gerard and his wife, on the other hand, had undoubtedly been living somewhat beyond their means, that they had got into debt, and that they were being harassed by creditors. While a more condemnatory fact still came out in the fact that the young clerk and his wife had been at the Epsom Spring Meeting with some friends, and that Gerard, while denying that he had had any but trifling bets, admitted that he had lost money there. Moreover, no such person as “Joseph Partridge” was to be found or heard of; and the other two cheques, details of the cashing of which were not so complete, were both made out in names equally impossible to trace to any actual person. It was a foregone conclusion that the case would have to go to trial, and when the eve of the fateful day arrived, the depression and certainty of his conviction grew so strongly upon poor Gerard that Audrey, who remained outwardly calm and brave by a great effort, followed him about from room to room, with an appalling fear at her heart that he would never face the ordeal. At last he turned suddenly to face her, and his haggard eyes, with all the boyish light gone out of them, looked dismally into her anxious, loving face. “Why do you follow me?” he asked abruptly. She tried to answer.