conduct, and so suspicion was engendered.  With infinite pains Mr. Gosford and a gentleman connected with the Tichborne family ascertained that the person who had figured as Mr. Taylor at the Swan had taken apartments for himself and his family at a hotel near Manchester Square, and that he had even been there since Christmas day.  But once more the clue was lost.  Sir Roger Tichborne had gone away with his wife and children, and left no one there but Bogle and his secretary.  Then by chance Mr. Gosford discovered that “Sir Roger” was staying at the Clarendon Hotel, Gravesend.  Forthwith Mr. Gosford, with the gentleman referred to, and Mr. Cullington, the solicitor, went to the Clarendon Hotel at Gravesend, where, after long waiting in the hall, they saw a stout person muffled, and wearing a peaked cap over the eyes, who, having glanced at the party suspiciously, rushed past them, hurried upstairs, and locked himself in a room.  In vain the party sent up cards, in vain they followed and tapped at the door.  The stout person would not open, and the party descended to the coffee-room, where soon afterwards they received a mysterious note, concluding:—­“pardon me gentlemen but I did not wish any-one to know where I was staying with my family.  And was much annoyed to see you all here.”  Lady Tichborne herself had failed to recognise in the letters from Wagga-Wagga the handwriting of her son, and Mr. Gosford was equally unsuccessful.  The party therefore left the house after warning the landlord that he had for a guest an “impostor and a rogue.”  Still the idea that his old friend, who had made him his executor and the depositary of his most secret wishes, could have come back again alive, however changed, was too pleasing to be abandoned by Mr. Gosford, even on such evidence.  Accordingly, by arrangement with an attorney named Holmes, he went down again, and, more successful this time, had conversation with the stranger who called himself Roger.  But nothing about the features of the man brought back to him any recollection, and subsequent interviews but confirmed the first impression.

Meanwhile, Lady Tichborne had learned that he whom she called Roger had arrived in England; and she wrote letters imploring him to come to her, to which the Claimant, who had not been in London more than a fortnight, answered, that he was “prevented by circumstances!” and added, “Oh!  Do come over and see me at once.”  On the very day after the date of this letter, however, he arrived in Paris, accompanied by a man whose acquaintance he had made in a billiard room, and by Mr. Holmes, the attorney to whom his casual acquaintance had introduced him.  The party put up at an hotel in the Rue St. Honore.  They knew Lady Tichborne’s address in the Place de la Madeleine, scarcely five minutes’ walk from their hotel; but they had arrived somewhat late, and “Sir Roger” paid no visit to his mother that day.  Lady Tichborne had in the meantime consulted her brother and others on the subject, but