He bestowed a donation upon the domestic, reentered his hansom, and told the man to drive to Euston-square "like a shot."

"So! His destination is Dorking, and he goes from Euston-square!" muttered Mr. Sheldon, in sombre meditation, as the hansom rattled and rushed, and jingled and jolted, over the stones. "There's something under the cards here."

Arrived at the great terminus, the stockbroker made his way to the down platform. There was a lull in the day's traffic, and only a few listless wretches lounging disconsolately here and there, with eyes ever and anon lifted to the clock. Amongst these there was no Valentine Hawkehurst.

Mr. Sheldon peered into all the waiting-rooms, and surveyed the refreshment-counter; but there was still no sign of the man he sought. He went back to the ticket-office; but here again all was desolate, the shutters of the pigeon-holes hermetically closed, and no vestige of Valentine Hawkehurst.

The stockbroker was disappointed, but not defeated. He returned to the platform, looked about him for a few moments, and then addressed himself to a porter of intelligent aspect.

"What trains have left here within the last half-hour?" he asked.

"Only one, sir; the 2.15 down, for Manchester."

"You didn't happen to notice a dark-eyed, dark-haired young man among the passengers—second class?" asked Mr. Sheldon.

"No, sir. There are always a good many passengers by that train; I haven't time to notice their faces."

The stockbroker asked no further questions. He was a man who did not care to be obliged to others for information which he could obtain for himself. He walked straight to a place where the time-tables were pasted on the wall, and ran his finger along the figures till he came to those he wanted.

The 2.15 train was a fast train, which stopped at only four places—Rugby, Ullerton, Murford, and Manchester.

"I daresay he has gone to Manchester," thought Mr. Sheldon—"on some racing business most likely, which he wants to keep dark from his patron the Captain. What a fool I am to trouble myself about him, as if he couldn't stir without meaning mischief to me! But I don't understand the friendship between him and George. My brother George is not likely to take up any man without some motive."

After these reflections Mr. Sheldon left the station and went back to his office in another hansom, still extremely thoughtful and somewhat disquieted.

"What does it matter to me where they go or what they do?" he asked himself, impatient of some lurking weakness of his own; "what does it matter to me whether those two are friendly or unfriendly? They can do me no harm."