“Then take the advice of an older fogey than yourself, and do nothing!  You are quite right to believe in the lady’s innocence; there is no excuse for entertaining any other belief, still less for expressing it.  But when you come to putting salt on the real culprit, that’s another matter.  My dear fellow, it’s not the sort of thing that you or I could hope to do on our own, even were the case far simpler than it is.  It was very sporting of you to offer for a moment to try your hand; but if I were you I should confess without delay that the task is far beyond you, for that’s the honest truth.”

Langholm walked back to his hotel, revolving this advice.  Its soundness was undeniable, while the source from which it came gave it exceptional weight and value.  It was an expert opinion which no man in his senses could afford to ignore, and Langholm felt that Mrs. Steel also ought at least to hear it before building on his efforts.  The letter would prepare her for his ultimate failure, as it was only fair that she should be prepared, and yet would leave him free to strain every nerve in any fresh direction in which a chance ray lit the path.  But it would be a difficult letter to write, and Langholm was still battling with the first sentence when he reached the Cadogan.

“A gentleman to see me?” he cried in surprise.  “What gentleman?”

“Wouldn’t leave his name, sir; said he’d call again; a foreign gentleman, he seemed to me.”

“A delicate-looking man?”

“Very, sir.  You seem to know him better than he knows you,” added the hall-porter, with whom Langholm had made friends.  “He wasn’t certain whether it was the Mr. Langholm he wanted who was staying here, and he asked to look at the register.”

“Did you let him see it?” cried Langholm, quickly.

“I did, sir.”

“Then let me have another look at it, please!”

It was as Langholm feared.  Thoughtlessly, but naturally enough, when requested to put his own name in the book, he had also filled in that full address which he took such pains to conceal in places where he was better known.  And that miserable young Italian, that fellow Severino, had discovered not only where he was staying in town, but where he lived in the country, and his next discovery would be Normanthorpe House and its new mistress!  Langholm felt enraged; after his own promise to write to Rachel, a promise already fulfilled, the unhappy youth might have had the decency to refrain from underhand tricks like this.  Langholm felt inclined to take a cab at once to Severino’s lodgings, there to relieve his mind by a very plain expression of his opinion.  But it was late; and perhaps allowances should be made for a sick man with a passion as hopeless as his bodily state; in any case he would sleep upon it first.

But there was no sleep for Charles Langholm that night, nor did the thought of Severino enter his head again; it was suddenly swept aside and as suddenly replaced by that of the man who was to fill the novelist’s mind for many a day.