The question ever agitating Karl's brain, in the midnight watches, in the garish day, was--what could he do in the matter?--how proceed in it at all with perfect security? The first thing of course was to ascertain that the man was Salter; the next to make a bargain with him: "You leave my brother free, and I will leave you free." For it was by no means his intention to deliver Salter up to justice. Karl had realized too keenly the distress and horror that must be the portion of a poor fugitive, hiding from the law, to denounce the worst criminal living. The difficulty lay entirely in the first step--the identification of Smith with Salter. How could he ascertain it? He did not know. He could not see any means by which it might be accomplished with safety. Grimley knew Salter--as in fact did several of Grimley's brotherhood--but, if he once brought Grimley within a bird's-eye view of Smith (Smith being Salter) Grimley would at once lay his grasping hands upon him. All would probably be over then: for the chances were that Salter in revenge would point his finger to the Maze, and say "There lives a greater criminal than I; your supposed dead convict, Adam Andinnian." The reader must see the difficulty and the danger. Karl dared not bring Grimley or any other of the police in contact with Smith; he dared not give them a clue to where he might be found: and he had to fall back upon the uncertain and unsatisfactory step of endeavouring to track out the identity himself. "If I could but get to know Burtenshaw's reason for thinking Salter was in England," he exclaimed to himself over and over again, "perhaps it might help me. Suppose I were to ask Burtenshaw again--and press it on him? Something might come of it. After all, he could but refuse to tell me." Just as Karl, after much painful deliberation, had determined to do this, there arrived at Foxwood a summons for his wife. Colonel Cleeve was attacked with sudden illness. In the first shock of it, Mrs. Cleeve feared it might prove fatal, and she sent for Lucy. Karl took her to Winchester and left her, and at once took up his own abode for a few days in London. The Court had none too much attraction for him as matters stood, and he did not care to be left to entertain Miss Blake. So long as his wife stayed away, he meant to stay. The following afternoon saw him at the detective's. Mr. Burtenshaw had thought his unknown visitor looking ill before: he looked worse now. "A delicate man with some great care upon him," summed up the officer to himself. Karl, opening his business, led up to the question he had come to ask. Would Mr. Burtenshaw confide to him the reason for his supposing Philip Salter to be still in England? At first Mr. Burtenshaw said No; that it could not, he imagined, concern him or anyone else to hear it. Karl pleaded, and pleaded earnestly. "Whatever you say shall be kept strictly sacred," he urged. "It cannot do harm to any one. I have a powerful motive for asking it."