“That is well.  And now I am going out to get some dinner; I shall be back in half an hour.”

The press and bustle of the day’s work was over at the tavern to which Gilbert bent his steps.  Dinners and diners seemed to be done with for one more day; and there were only a couple of drowsy-looking waiters folding table-cloths and putting away cruet-stands and other paraphernalia in long narrow closets cut in the papered walls, and invisible by day.

One of these functionaries grew brisk again, with a wan factitious briskness, at sight of Gilbert, made haste to redecorate one of the tables, and in bland insinuating tones suggested a dinner of six courses or so, as likely to be agreeable to a lonely and belated diner; well aware in the depths of his inner consciousness that the six courses would be all more or less warmings-up of viands that had figured in the day’s bill of fare.

“Bring me a chop or a steak, and a pint of dry sherry,” Gilbert said wearily.

“Have a slice of turbot and lobster-sauce, sir—­the turbot are uncommon fine to-day; and a briled fowl and mushrooms.  It will be ready in five minutes.”

“You may bring me the fowl, if you like:  I won’t wait for fish.  I’m in a hurry.”

The attendant gave a faint sigh, and communicated the order for the fowl and mushrooms through a speaking-tube.  It was the business of his life to beguile his master’s customers into over-eating themselves, and to set his face against chops and steaks; but he felt that this particular customer was proof against his blandishments.  He took Gilbert an evening paper, and then subsided into a pensive silence until the fowl appeared in an agreeable frizzling state, fresh from the gridiron, but a bird of some experience notwithstanding, and wingless.  It was a very hasty meal.  Gilbert was eager to return to those chambers in the Temple—­eager to be listening once more for some chance words of meaning that might be dropped from John Saltram’s pale parched lips in the midst of incoherent ravings.  Come what might, he wanted to be near at hand, to watch that sick-bed with a closer vigil than hired nurse ever kept; to be ready to surprise the briefest interval of consciousness that might come all of a sudden to that hapless fever-stricken sinner.  Who should say that such an interval would not come, or who could tell what such an interval might reveal?

Gilbert Fenton paid for his dinner, left half his wine undrunk, and hurried away; leaving the waiter with rather a contemptuous idea of him, though that individual condescended to profit by his sobriety, and finished the dry sherry at a draught.

It was nearly ten when Gilbert returned to the chambers, and all was still quiet, that heavy slumber continuing; an artificial sleep at the best, produced by one of Mr. Mew’s sedatives.  The sofa had been wheeled from the bedroom to the sitting-room, and placed in a comfortable corner by the fire.  There were preparations too for a cup of tea, to be made and consumed at any hour agreeable to the watcher; a small teakettle simmering on the hob; a tray with a cup and saucer, and queer little black earthenware teapot, on the table; a teacaddy and other appliances close at hand,—­all testifying to the grateful attention of the vanished Pratt.