nd look at the Echinoid another day
--or when I return from Sevastopol--"

Tom went out with him. A new ray of hope had crossed the Major's mind.
His meeting with Thurnall might he providential; for he recollected now,
for the first time, Mellot's parting hint.

"You knew Elsley Vavasour well?"

"No man better."

"Did you think that there was any tendency to madness in him?"

"No more than in any other selfish, vain, irritable man, with a strong
imagination left to run riot."

"Humph! you seem to have divined his character. May I ask you if you
knew him before you met him at Aberalva?"

Tom looked up sharply in the Major's face.

"You would ask, what cause I have for inquiring? I will tell you
presently. Meanwhile I may say, that Mellot told me frankly that you had
some power over him; and mentioned, mysteriously, a name--John Briggs, I
think--which it appears that he once assumed."

"If Mellot thought fit to tell you anything, I may frankly tell you all.
John Briggs is his real name. I have known him from childhood." And then
Tom poured into the ears of the surprised and somewhat disgusted Major
all he had to tell.

"You have kept your secret mercifully, and used it wisely, sir; and I
and others shall be always your debtors for it. Now I dare tell you in
turn, in strictest confidence of course--"

"I am far too poor to afford the luxury of babbling."

And the Major told him what we all know.

"I expected as much," said he drily. "Now, I suppose that you wish me to
exert myself in finding the man?"

"I do."

"Were Mrs. Vavasour only concerned, I should say--Not I! Better
that she should never set eyes on him again."

"Better, indeed!" said he bitterly: "but it is I who must see him, if
but for five minutes. I must!"

"Major Campbell's wish is a command. Where have you searched for him?"

"At his address, at his publisher's, at the houses of various literary
friends of his, and yet no trace."

"Has he gone to the Continent?"

"Heaven knows! I have inquired at every passport office for news of any
one answering his description; indeed, I have two detectives, I may tell
you, at this moment, watching every possible place. There is but one
hope, if he be alive. Can he have gone home to his native town?"

"Never! Anywhere but there."

"Is there any old friend of the lower class with whom he may have taken
lodgings?"

Tom pondered.

"There was a fellow, a noisy blackguard, whom Briggs was asking