"I am waiting for that, Mr. Yorke."

But for the presence of Bede Greatorex, who sat at his desk in the front office, Roland might have retorted on Mr. Brown that he might wait, for he felt in just as bad a humour as it was well possible for Roland, or anybody else, to feel. Ceasing his covert grumbling to Hurst, who had the convenient gift of listening and writing away by steam at one and the same time, Roland\'s pen resumed its task.

Never, since Roland had joined the house of Greatorex and Greatorex, did he remember it to have been so pressed as now, as far as Bede\'s room was concerned. There was a sudden accumulation of work, and hands were short. Little Jenner had been summoned into Yorkshire by the illness of his mother, and Mr. Bede Greatorex had kindly said to him, "Don\'t hurry back if you find her in danger." They could not borrow help from the other side, for it happened that a clerk there was also absent.

Thus it fell out that not only Mr. Brown had to stay in the office the previous night until a late hour, but he detained Roland in it as well, besides warning that gentleman that he must take twenty minutes for his dinner at present, and no more. This was altogether an intense grievance, considering that Roland had fully purposed to devote a large amount of leisure time to Arthur Channing. One whole day, and this one getting towards its close, and Roland had not set eyes on Arthur. Since the moment when he left him at the door of the hotel in Norfolk Street, the last evening but one, Roland had neither seen nor heard of him. He was resenting this quite as much as the weight of work: for when his heart was really engaged, anything like slight or neglect wounded it to the core. Somewhat of this feeling had set in on the first night. After startling the street and alarming the inmates of the house, through the bell and knocker, to find that Arthur Channing had left his hotel and not come to him, was as a very pill to Roland. He had been kept all closely at work since, and Arthur had not chosen to come in search of him.

Whatever impression might have been made on the mind of Bede Greatorex by the police officer\'s communication, now nearly two days old, he could not but estimate at its true value the efficiency of Mr. Brown as a clerk. In an emergency like the present, Mr. Brown did that which Roland was fond of talking of--put his shoulder to the wheel. Whatever the demands of the office, Mr. Brown showed himself equal to them almost in his own person; this, combined with his very excellent administrative qualities, rendered him invaluable to Bede Greatorex. In a silent, undemonstrative kind of way, Mr. Brown had also for some months past been on the alert to watch for those mistakes, inadvertent neglects, forgetfulness in his master, which the reader has heard complained of. So far as he was able to do it, these were at once silently remedied, and nothing said. Bede detected this: and he knew that many a night when Mr. Brown stayed over hours in the office, working diligently, it was to repair some failure of his. Once, and once only, Bede spoke. "Why are you so late tonight, Mr. Brown?" he asked, upon going into the office close upon ten o\'clock and finding Mr. Brown up to his elbows in work. "I\'m only getting forward for the morning, sir," was the manager\'s quiet answer. But Bede, though he said no more, saw that the clerk had taken some unhappy error of his in hand, and was toiling to remedy it and avert trouble. So that, whatever might be Mr. Brown\'s private sins, Bede Greatorex could scarcely afford to lose him.

Once more, for perhaps the five hundredth time, Bede glanced from his desk at Mr. Brown opposite. No longer need, though, was there to glance with any speculative view; that had been set at rest. The eyes that had so mystified Bede Greatorex, bringing to him an uneasy, puzzling feeling, which wholly refused to elucidate itself, tax his memory as he would, were at length rendered clear eyes to him. He knew where and on what occasion he had seen them: and if he had disliked and dreaded them before, he dreaded them ten times more now.

"Ah, how do you do, Mr. Channing?"

Bede, leaving his desk, had been crossing the office to his private room, when Hamish entered. They shook hands, and stood talking for a few minutes, not having met since Bede returned from his continental tour. Just as a change for the worse in Bede struck Mr. Butterby\'s keen eye, so, as it appeared, did some change in Hamish Channing strike Bede.

"Are you well?" he asked.

"As well as London and its hard work will let me be," replied Hamish, with one of his charming smiles, which really was gay and light, in spite of its tinge of sadness. "It is of no use to dream of green fields and blue waves when we cannot get to them, you know."

"That\'s rest--when you can sit down in the one and idly watch the other," remarked Bede. "But to go scampering about for a month or two at railroad speed, neither body nor eye getting holiday, wears out a man worse than working on in London, Mr. Channing."

With a slow, lingering gaze at Hamish\'s refined face, which was looking strangely worn, and, so to say, etherealised, Bede passed on to his room Hamish turned to the desk of Hurst and Roland Yorke.

"How are you?" he asked of them conjointly.

"As well as cantankerous circumstances and people will let me be," was the cross reply of Roland, without looking up from his writing.

Hamish laughed.

"Just because I wanted a little leisure just now, I\'ve got double work put on my shoulders," went on Roland. "You remember that time at old Galloway\'s, Hamish, when Jenkins and Arthur were both away together, throwing all the work upon me? Well, we\'ve got a second edition of that here."

"Who is away?" inquired Hamish.

"Little Jenner. And he is good for three of us any day in point of getting through work. The result is, that Mr. Brown"--giving a defiant nod to the gentleman opposite--"keeps me at it like a slave. But for Arthur\'s being in London, I\'d not mind some extra pressure, I\'d be glad to oblige, and do it. Not that Arthur misses me, if one may judge by appearances," he continued in a deeply-injured tone. "I would not be two days in a strange place without going to see after him."

"Have you not seen Arthur, then?" inquired Hamish.

"No, I have not seen him," retorted Roland, with emphasis. "He has been too much taken up with you and other friends, to think of me. Perhaps he has gone over to Gerald\'s interests: and his theory is, that I\'m nobody worth knowing. Mother Jenkins has had her best gown on for two days, expecting him. Live and learn--and confound it all! I\'d have backed Arthur Channing, for faith and truth, against the world."

Hamish laughed slightly: any such interlude as this in Roland\'s generally easy nature, amused him always.

"You and I and Mrs. Jenkins are in the same box, old fellow, for Arthur has not been to me."

"Oh, hasn\'t he?" was Roland\'s answer, delivered with lofty indifference, and an angry shake of the pen, which blotted his work all over. "It\'s a case of Gerald, then. Perhaps he is taking him round to the Tower, and the waxwork, and the wild beasts--as I thought to do."

"I expect it is rather a case of business," remarked Hamish. "You know what Arthur is: when he has work to do, that supersedes all else. Still I wonder he did not come round last night. We waited dinner until half-past seven."

Roland was occupied in trying to repair the damage he had wilfully made, and gave no answer.

"I came in now to ask you for news of him, Roland. Where is he staying?"

"He has not called yet to see Annabel," broke in Roland. "And that I do think shameful."

"Where is he staying?"

"Staying! Why at the place in Norfolk Street. He told you where."

"Yes," assented Hamish, "but he is not staying there. I have just come from the hotel now."

"Who says he is not?"

"The people at the hotel."

"Oh, they say that, do they?" retorted Roland, turning his resentment on the people in question. "They are nice ones to keep an hotel."

"They say he is not there, and has not been there."

"Then, Hamish, I can tell you that he is there. Didn\'t I take him down to it that night from your house, and see him safe in? Didn\'t he order his missing portmanteau to be sent to the place as soon as it turned up? They had better tell me that he is not there!"

"What they say is this, Roland. That Arthur went there, but left again the same night, never occupying his bed at all: and they can give me no information as to where he is staying. I did not put many questions, but came off to you, thinking you would know his movements."

"And that is just what I don\'t know. Arthur has not chosen to let me know. He is at the hote............