It was only my idea they were the
same. I came away, and don't know how they settled it."

"But something, Major Roper, must have made you think this man the
same--the same as Jeremiah Indermaur, or whatever his name was--Mrs.
Nightingale's man?"

"Somethin' must! What it was is another pair of shoes." He cogitated
and reflected, but seemed to get no nearer. "You ask Pelloo," he said.
"He might give you a tip." Then he called for a small glass of cognac,
because the Seltzer was such dam chilly stuff, and the dry sherry was
no use at all. We left him arranging the oracle over his face, with
a view to a serious nap.

We got a few words shortly after with General Pellew, who seemed a
little surprised at the Major's having referred to him for
information.

"I don't know," said he, "why our friend Roper shouldn't recollect as
much about it as I do. However, I do certainly remember that when this
young gentleman, whatever his name was, left the station, he did go to
Sydney or Melbourne, and I have some hazy recollection of some one
saying that he was lost in the Bush. But why old Jack fancies he was
found again or changed his name to Harrisson I haven't the slightest
idea."

So that all we ourselves succeeded in getting at about Gerry may be
said to have been the trap-door he vanished through. Whether Mrs.
Nightingale got at other sources of information we cannot say.
Whatever she learned she would be sure to keep her own counsel about.
She may have concluded that the bones of the husband who had in a fit
of anger deserted her had been picked by white ants, twenty years ago,
in an Australian forest; or she may have come to know, by some means,
of his resuscitation from the Bush, and his successes or failures in
a later life elsewhere. We have had our own reasons for doubting that
she ever knew that he took the name of Harrisson--if he really did--a
point which seemed to us very uncertain, so far as the Major's
narrative went. If she did get a scrap of tidings, a flying word,
about him now and again, it was most likely all she got. And when she
got it she would feel the danger of further inquiry--the difficulty of
laying the reasons for her curiosity before her informant. You can't
easily say to a stranger: "Oh, do tell us about Mrs. Jones or Mr.
Smith. She or he is our divorced or separated wife or husband." A
German might, but Mrs. Nightingale was not a German.

However, she _may_ have heard something about that Ger