“From what he told me,” his vis-a-vis continued, handing again his cigarette-case, and looking steadily into the fire, “he seems to have left England with the secret determination never to return.  But why I do not know.  One thing is certain.  His mental state was not altogether healthy.  His desire for solitude was almost a passion.  Towards the end, however, his mind was clear enough.  He told me about your mother and you, and he handed me all the papers, which I subsequently sent to London.  He spoke of no trouble, and his transition was quite peaceful.”

“It was a cruel ending,” Brooks said, quietly.  “There were people in London whom he had befriended who would have worked their passage out and faced any hardships to be with him.  And my mother, notwithstanding his desertion, believed in him to the last.”

There was a moment’s intense silence.  This visitor who had come so strangely was to all appearance a man not easily to be moved.  Yet Brooks fancied that the long white fingers were trembling, and that the strange quiet of his features was one of intense self-repression.  His tone when he spoke again, however, was clear, and almost indifferent.

“I feel,” he said, “that it would have been only decently courteous of me to have sought you out before, although I have, as you see, nothing whatever to add to the communications I sent you.  But I have not been a very long time in England, and I have a very evil habit of putting off things concerning which there is no urgency.  I called at Ascough’s, and learned that you were in practice in Medchester.  I am now living for a short time not far from here, and reading of the election, I drove in to-night to attend one of the meetings—­I scarcely cared which.  I heard your name, saw you on the platform, and called here, hoping to find you.”

“It was very kind,” Brooks said.

He felt curiously tongue-tied.  This sudden upheaval of a past which he had never properly understood affected him strangely.

“I gathered from Mr. Ascough that you were left sufficient means to pay for your education, and also to start you in life,” his visitor continued.  “Yours is considered to be an overcrowded profession, but I am glad to understand that you seem likely to make your way.”

Brooks thanked him absently.

“From your position on the platform to-night I gather that you are a politician?”

“Scarcely that,” Brooks answered.  “I was fortunate enough to be appointed agent to Mr. Henslow owing to the illness of another man.  It will help me in my profession.”

The visitor rose to his feet.  He stood with his hands behind him, looking at the younger man.  And Brooks suddenly remembered that he did not even know his name.

“You will forgive me,” he said, also rising, “if I have seemed a little dazed.  I am very grateful to you for coming.  I have always wanted more than anything in the world to meet some one who saw my father after he left England.  There is so much which even now seems mysterious with regard to his disappearance from the world.”