"What's happened about Janie Iver? There was some talk----" "It's all over," whispered Neeld with needless caution. "He released her, and she accepted the release." "What, on the ground that----?" "Really I don't know any more. But it's finally over; you may depend upon that." Southend lit a cigar with a satisfied air. On the whole he was glad to hear the news. "Staying much longer in town?" he asked. "No, I'm going down to Iver's again in August." "You want to see the end of it? Come, I know that's it!" He laughed as he walked away. Meanwhile Harry Tristram, unconscious of the efforts which were being made to arrange his future, and paying as little attention as he could to the buzz of gossip about his past, had settled down in quiet rooms and was looking at the world from a new point of view. He was in seclusion like his cousin; the mourning they shared for Addie Tristram was sufficient excuse; and he found his chief pleasure in wandering about the streets. The season was not over yet, and he liked to go out about eight in the evening and watch the great city starting forth to enjoy itself. Then he could feel its life in all the rush and the gayety of it. Somehow now he seemed more part of it and more at home in it than when he used to run up for a few days from his country home. Then Blent had been the centre of his life, and in town he was but a stranger and a sojourner. Blent was gone; and London is home to homeless men. There was a suggestion for him in the air of it, an impulse that was gradually but strongly urging him to action, telling him that he must begin to do. For the moment he was notorious, but the talk and the staring would be over soon--the sooner the better, he added most sincerely. Then he must do something if he wished still to be, or ever again to be, anybody. Otherwise he could expect no more than to be pointed out now and then to the curious as the man who had once been Tristram of Blent and had ceased to be such in a puzzling manner.