ranger, young Mister; and it's as likely as not you've
given me a false name and address. That don't matter. False names are
commoner than true ones, in my line of life. But mind this! I don't
stir a step farther till I've got half the money in my hand, and my
return-ticket there and back."

"Hold your tongue!" the man suddenly interposed in a whisper. "It's all
right. I'll get the tickets."

He looked while he spoke at an elderly traveller, hastening by with
his head down, deep in thought, noticing nobody. The traveller was
Mr. Ronald. The young man, who had that moment recognized him, was his
runaway porter, John Farnaby.

Returning with the tickets, the porter took his repellent travelling
companion by the arm, and hurried her along the platform to the train.
"The money!" she whispered, as they took their places. Farnaby handed
it to her, ready wrapped up in a morsel of paper. She opened the paper,
satisfied herself that no trick had been played her, and leaned back in
her corner to go to sleep. The train started. Old Ronald travelled by
the second class; his porter and his porter's companion accompanied him
secretly by the third.

V

It was still early in the afternoon when Mr. Ronald descended the narrow
street which leads from the high land of the South-Eastern railway
station to the port of Ramsgate. Asking his way of the first policeman
whom he met, he turned to the left, and reached the cliff on which the
houses in Albion Place are situated. Farnaby followed him at a discreet
distance; and the woman followed Farnaby.

Arrived in sight of the lodging-house, Mr. Ronald paused--partly to
recover his breath, partly to compose himself. He was conscious of a
change of feeling as he looked up at the windows: his errand suddenly
assumed a contemptible aspect in his own eyes. He almost felt ashamed of
himself. After twenty years of undisturbed married life, was it possible
that he had doubted his wife--and that at the instigation of a stranger
whose name even was unknown to him? "If she was to step out in the
balcony, and see me down here," he thought, "what a fool I should look!"
He felt half-inclined, at the moment when he lifted the knocker of the
door, to put it back again quietly, and return to London. No! it was too
late. The maid-servant was hanging up her birdcage in the area of the
house; the maid-servant had seen him.

"Does Mrs. Ronald lodge here?" he asked.

The girl lifted her eyebrows and opened