“Ah!  I know of myself that way.”

“And,” added Vendale, pursuing the thought that he could not drive back, “by my earliest recollections.”

“I also.  I know of myself that way—­if that way satisfies.”

“Does it not satisfy you?”

“It must.  There is nothing like ‘it must’ in this little world.  It must.  Two short words those, but stronger than long proof or reasoning.”

“You and poor Wilding were born in the same year.  You were nearly of an age,” said Vendale, again thoughtfully looking after him as he resumed his pacing up and down.

“Yes.  Very nearly.”

Could Obenreizer be the missing man?  In the unknown associations of things, was there a subtler meaning than he himself thought, in that theory so often on his lips about the smallness of the world?  Had the Swiss letter presenting him followed so close on Mrs. Goldstraw’s revelation concerning the infant who had been taken away to Switzerland, because he was that infant grown a man?  In a world where so many depths lie unsounded, it might be.  The chances, or the laws—­call them either—­that had wrought out the revival of Vendale’s own acquaintance with Obenreizer, and had ripened it into intimacy, and had brought them here together this present winter night, were hardly less curious; while read by such a light, they were seen to cohere towards the furtherance of a continuous and an intelligible purpose.

Vendale’s awakened thoughts ran high while his eyes musingly followed Obenreizer pacing up and down the room, the river ever running to the tune:  “Where shall I rob him, if I can?  Where shall I murder him, if I must?” The secret of his dead friend was in no hazard from Vendale’s lips; but just as his friend had died of its weight, so did he in his lighter succession feel the burden of the trust, and the obligation to follow any clue, however obscure.  He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be the real Wilding?  No.  Argue down his mistrust as he might, he was unwilling to put such a substitute in the place of his late guileless, outspoken childlike partner.  He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be rich?  No.  He had more power than enough over Marguerite as it was, and wealth might invest him with more.  Would he like this man to be Marguerite’s Guardian, and yet proved to stand in no degree of relationship towards her, however disconnected and distant?  No.  But these were not considerations to come between him and fidelity to the dead.  Let him see to it that they passed him with no other notice than the knowledge that they had passed him, and left him bent on the discharge of a solemn duty.  And he did see to it, so soon that he followed his companion with ungrudging eyes, while he still paced the room; that companion, whom he supposed to be moodily reflecting on his own birth, and not on another man’s—­least of all what man’s—­violent Death.