“Rakaia,” on his way to France via Panama, and accompanied by his family, and attended by old Bogle, his son, and a youthful secretary, left Sydney on September 2d, 1866, and was expected by the Dowager in Paris within two months from that date.  But nearly four months elapsed, and there were no tidings.  Between Christmas day and New Year’s eve of 1866, there arrived in Alresford a mysterious stranger, who put up at the Swan Hotel in that little town, and said that his name was Taylor.  He was a man of bulk and eccentric attire.  He wrapped himself in large greatcoats, muffled his neck and chin in thick shawls, and wore a cap with a peak of unusual dimensions, which, when it was pulled down, covered a considerable portion of his features.  The stranger, at first very reserved, soon showed signs of coming out of his shell.  He sent for Rous, the landlord, and had a chat with him, in the course of which he asked Rous to take him the next day for a drive round the neighbourhood of Tichborne.  Rous complied, and the innkeeper, chatting all the way on local matters, showed his guest Tichborne village, Tichborne park and house, the church, the mill, the village of Cheriton, and all else that was worth seeing in that neighbourhood.  In fact, Mr. Taylor became very friendly with Rous, invited him to drink in his room, and then confided to him an important secret—­which, however, was by this time no secret at all, for Mr. Rous had just observed upon his guest’s portmanteau the initials “R.C.T.”  Indeed it was already suspected in the smoking-room of the Swan that the enormous stranger was the long-expected heir.  Suspicion became certainty when the stranger telegraphed for Bogle, and that faithful black, once familiar in the streets of Alresford, suddenly made his appearance there, began reconnoitring the house at Tichborne, contrived to get inside the old home, to learn that it had been let by the trustees of the infant baronet to a gentleman named Lushington, and to examine carefully the position of the old and new pictures hanging on the walls.  This done, the stranger and his black attendant disappeared as suddenly as they had come.  But the news spread abroad, and reached many persons who were interested.  Roger’s numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins heard of the sudden appearance of the long-expected Australian claimant.  The Dowager in Paris, the mother of the infant, then at Ryde, all heard the news; and finally Mr. Gosford, Roger’s dearest and most intimate friend and confidant, then in North Wales, got intelligence, and hastened to London to ascertain if the joyful news could be true.

But the enormous individual had vanished again.  The circumstance was strange.  Bogle had written letters from Australia declaring that this was the identical gentleman he had known years before as Mr. Roger Tichborne when a visitor at Sir Edward’s; and the Dowager had declared herself satisfied.  But why did the long-lost Roger hold aloof?  No one could tell.  There was no reason for such