As he made these resolutions he turned in at a little gate opening into a corner of St. John’s Gardens, with the object of passing through the college back into the streets of the town.  It was not quite his nearest way, but he loved the old buildings, and the trees, and the river, even in winter.  It still was winter, being now the middle of February; but, as it happened, the air was dry and mild, and the sun was shining.  Still, he was surprised at such a time of the year to see an elderly man apparently asleep on one of the benches which are placed close to the path.  But there he was, asleep, with his two hands on a stick, and his head bent forward over his stick.  It was impossible not to look at the man sleeping there in that way; but Caldigate would hardly have looked, would hardly have dared to look, could he have anticipated what he would see.  The elderly man was Thomas Crinkett.  As he passed he was quite sure that the man was Thomas Crinkett.  When he had gone on a dozen yards, he paused for a moment to consider what he would do.  A dozen different thoughts passed through his mind in that moment of time.  Why was the man there?  Why, indeed, could he have come to England except with the view of prosecuting the demand which he and the woman had made?  His presence even in England was sufficient to declare that this battle would have to be fought.  But to Cambridge he could have come with no other object than that of beginning the attack at once.  And then, had he already commenced his work?  He had not at any rate been to Robert Bolton, to whom any one knowing the family would have first referred him.  And why was he sleeping there?  Why was he not now at work upon his project?  Again, would it be better at the present moment that he should pass by the man as though he had not seen him; or should he go back and ask him his purpose?  As the thought passed through his mind, he stayed his step for a moment on the pathway and looked round.  The man had moved his position, and was now sitting with his head turned away but evidently not asleep.  Then it occurred to Caldigate that Crinkett’s slumbers had been only a pretence, that the man had seen and recognised him, and at the moment had not chosen to make himself known.  And it occurred to him also that in a matter of such importance as this he should do nothing on the spur of the moment,—­nothing without consideration.  A word spoken to Crinkett, a word without consideration, might be fatal to him.  So he passed on, having stood upon the path hardly more than a second or two.

Before he had got up to the new buildings of St. John’s a cold sweat had come out all over him.  He was conscious of this, and conscious also that for a time he was so confounded by the apparition of his enemy as to be unable to bring his mind to work properly on the subject.  ’Let him do his worst,’ he kept on saying to himself; ‘let him do his worst.’  But he knew that the brave words, though spoken only to himself, were mere braggadocio