He first sought Julius at the Hyacinth Club, where he frequently spent the afternoon.  Failing to find him there, he inquired for him at his chambers in the Albany.  Hearing nothing of him there, and the ardour of his quest having cooled a little, he stepped out across the way to his own home in Savile Row.

There he found a note from his mother, with a touch of mystery in its wording.  She said she wanted very much to have a serious conversation with him; she had been expecting for days to see him, and she begged him to go that evening to dinner if he could.  “Julius,” said she, “will be here, and one or two others.”

The mention of Julius as a visitor at his mother’s house reminded him of his promise to that lady to find out how the young man was connected:  engrossed as he had been with his strange case, he had almost forgotten the promise, and he had done nothing to fulfil it but tap ineffectually for admission to his friend’s confidence.  He therefore considered with some anxiety what he should do, for Lady Lefevre could on occasion be exacting and severe with her son.  He concluded nothing could be done before dinner, but he went prepared to be questioned and perhaps rated.  He was pleased to find that his mother seemed to have forgotten his promise as much as he had, and to see her in the best of spirits with a tableful of company.

“Oh, you have come,” said she, presenting her cheek to her son; “I thought that after all you might be detained by that mysterious case you have at the hospital.  Here’s Dr. Rippon—­and Julius too—­dying to hear all about it;” but she gave no hint of the serious conversation which she said in her note she desired.

“Not I, Lady Lefevre,” Julius protested.  “I don’t like medical revelations; they make me feel as if I were sitting at the confessional of mankind.”

Noting by the way that Julius and his sister seemed much taken up with each other, and that Julius, while as fascinating as ever, and as ready and apt and intelligent of speech, seemed somewhat more chastened in manner and less effervescent in health,—­like a fire of coal that has spent its gas and settled into a steady glow of heat,—­he turned to Dr Rippon, a tall, thin old gentleman of over seventy, but who yet had a keen tongue, and a shrewd, critical eye.  He had been an intimate friend of the elder Lefevre, and the son greeted him with respect and affection.

“Who is the gentleman?” said Dr Rippon, aside, when their greeting was over.  “It does an old man’s heart good to see and hear him,” and the old doctor straightened himself.  “But he’ll get old too; that’s the sad thing, from my point of view, that such beauty of person and swift intelligence of mind must grow old and withered, and slow and dull.  What did you say his name is, John?”

“His name is Courtney—­Julius Courtney,” said Lefevre.

“Courtney,” mused the old man, stroking his eyebrow; “I once knew a man of that name, or, rather, who took that name.  I wonder if this friend of yours is of the same family; he is not unlike the man I knew.”