It was common talk that some strange, romantic incident had overshadowed his life, but with that innate secrecy that was part of his creed he never confided in anybody. Notwithstanding his frigid cynicism, however, he was nevertheless sympathetic, and at any mention of Ella's name he would rivet his searching eyes upon me, while across the white brow, furrowed by the heavy responsibilities of State through so many years, would spread an expression of regret, anxiety or pain. But he spoke seldom upon that subject. That he regarded my marriage as a deplorable fiasco I was well aware, but felt that in his cold heart, hardened as it was by the artful subterfuges of successful diplomacy, there yet remained a spark of pity, for he still regarded me as his _protege_. On the day after Ella had fled I called at Andrew Beck's office at Winchester House, Old Broad Street, but found he had sailed a few days before by the Union Liner _Scot_ for Cape Town. Of late he had become connected with several South African gold ventures of enormous extent, and in the interests of some of the companies most prominently before the public, had undertaken the journey. His great wealth, in combination with that of his associates, had inspired public confidence, and there had commenced that feverish tendency in the city that quickly developed, and was later known as the "gold boom." The movements of the popular member for West Rutlandshire were cabled and chronicled in the newspapers as diligently as if he were a prince of a reigning house, and it was with extreme satisfaction that one morning in June I saw it announced that the mail had arrived at Southampton from the Cape bearing him on board, the same paper printing an account of an interview regarding gold prospects in South Africa which he had given its representative before he left the steamer. I was down at Warnham at the time, but three days later returned to London, and that same night sought Beck at the House of Commons. I found him in the Members' Lobby, bustling about in his ill-fitting evening clothes and crumpled shirt-front, looking sun-tanned and well; a trifle more arrogant, perhaps, but nevertheless easy-going and good-natured as usual. He greeted me heartily, and the night being warm we lit cigars and walked out upon the Terrace beside the Thames. Big Ben was chiming the midnight hour. It was bright and star-lit above, but before us the river ran darkly beneath the arches of Westminster Bridge, its ripples glistening under the gas lamps. Across on the opposite bank, in the row of buildings comprising St Thomas's Hospital, lights glimmered faintly in the windows of the wards, while here and there on the face of the black, silent highway, lights, white, red and green, shone out in silent warning.