f importance, and stopped.

"Yes, I suppose I can afford it," he returned, and added with apparent
irrelevance, "Do you happen to know Stormly village, Mr. Saunderson?"

"I've driven through it."

Christopher nodded. "So have I. I'll not detain you any longer. Will
you let Clisson know I shall be there on Thursday?"

"Certainly. Will you like me to accompany you?"

Christopher shook his head. "Not this time, I think. I would rather be
alone."

"And one thing," Mr. Saunderson coughed a little nervously, "the name?
We can arrange the legal identification this afternoon, but what name
will you ultimately take?"

Christopher came to a standstill at the door. Here was a decision
thrust on him for which he was oddly unprepared. He recognised at once
it meant setting the seal to his own committal if he answered as the
lawyer evidently expected and hoped he would do. He paused just long
enough to remember how hardly he had taken Mr. Aston's insistence he
should sign his marriage register as Aston Masters.

"I must take the name since I take its belongings," he said ruefully,
and Mr. Saunderson felt his victory was complete.

On the following Thursday morning there was nothing in the aspect of
earth or sky to indicate to the workers in Princes Buildings the
importance of that day to their respective fortunes. On the top floor
only a sense of gentle expectancy was present, and a complacent faith
in their own readiness to receive and set at ease the young man who
was to be the outward visible sign of all that for which they toiled
so unceasingly.

As an individual, the younger men bestowed a certain curiosity not
unmixed with envy on him; as the successor of Peter Masters, they
entertained no doubt whatever he would obediently adhere to the
prescribed system as they themselves did. Christopher had arrived in
Birmingham the night before and put up at an hotel. Early the next
morning he went up the steps into the central corridor of the great
buildings that were to all intents and purposes his. There was no one
about but a lift boy who did not recognise him, but seeing him look
round with deliberate curiosity, asked him civilly what floor he
wanted.

"Mr. Masters' private offices," Christopher explained. "Top floor,
aren't they?"

The boy nodded. Christopher studied him gravely as they went up in the
lift as one of the smallest and probably least important items into
whose service he had entered.

The porter at the