en rather heavy lately. How he
came to know of that I am unable to say. Without supposing, that is,
that he had very remarkable gifts."

When Lewisham saw Lagune again he learnt the particulars of Chaffery's
misdeed and the additional fact that the "lady" had also
disappeared. "That's a good job," he remarked selfishly. "There's no
chance of _his_ coming back." He spent a moment trying to imagine the
"lady"; he realised more vividly than he had ever done before the
narrow range of his experience, the bounds of his imagination. These
people also--with grey hair and truncated honour--had their emotions I
Even it may be glowing! He came back to facts. Chaffery had induced
Lagune when hypnotised to sign a blank cheque as an "autograph." "The
strange thing is," explained Lagune, "it's doubtful if he's legally
accountable. The law is so peculiar about hypnotism and I certainly
signed the cheque, you know."

The little man, in spite of his losses, was now almost cheerful again
on account of a curious side issue. "You may say it is coincidence,"
he said, "you may call it a fluke, but I prefer to look for some other
interpretation! Consider this. The amount of my balance is a secret
between me and my bankers. He never had it from _me_, for I did not
know it--I hadn't looked at my passbook for months. But he drew it all
in one cheque, within seventeen and sixpence of the total. And the
total was over five hundred pounds!"

He seemed quite bright again as he culminated.

"Within seventeen and sixpence," he said. "Now how do you account for
that, eh? Give me a materialistic explanation that will explain away
all that. You can't. Neither can I."

"I think I can," said Lewisham.

"Well--what is it?"

Lewisham nodded towards a little drawer of the bureau. "Don't you
think--perhaps"--a little ripple of laughter passed across his
mind--"he had a skeleton key?"

Lagune's face lingered amusingly in Lewisham's mind as he returned to
Clapham. But after a time that amusement passed away. He declined upon
the extraordinary fact that Chaffery was his father-in-law, Mrs.
Chaffery his mother-in-law, that these two and Ethel constituted his
family, his clan, and that grimy graceless house up the Clapham
hillside was to be his home. Home! His connexion with these things as
a point of worldly departure was as inexorable now as though he had
been born to it. And a year ago, except for a fading reminiscence of
Ethel, none of these people h