“His name?” I asked.

“Were there no papers upon him?” Ray demanded.

“None.”

“So much the better,” Ray declared grimly.  “Now, my young friend, I have given you all the time I can spare.  Beyond what I have said I shall say nothing.  If you had known me better—­you would not be here still.”

So I left him.  His words gave me no loophole of hope.  His silence was the silence of a strong man, and I had no weapons with which to assail it.  I had wasted the money which I could ill afford on this journey to London.  Certainly Ray’s advice was good.  The sooner I was back in Braster the better.

From the station I had walked straight to Ray’s house, and from Ray’s house I returned, without any deviation, direct to the great terminus.  For a man with less than fifty pounds in the world London is scarcely a hospitable city.  I caught a slow train, and after four hours of jolting, cold, and the usual third-class miseries, alighted at Rowchester Junction.  Already I had started on the three mile tramp home, my coat collar turned up as some slight protection against the drizzling rain, when a two-wheeled trap overtook me, and Mr. Moyat shouted out a gruff greeting.  He raised the water-proof apron, and I clambered in by his side.

“Been to Sunbridge?” he inquired cheerfully.

“I have been to London,” I answered.

“You haven’t been long about it,” he remarked.  “I saw you on the eight-twenty, didn’t I?”

I nodded.

“My business was soon over,” I said.

“I’ve been to Sunbridge,” he told me.  “Went over with his Grace.  My girl was talking about you the other night, Mr. Ducaine.”

I started.

“Indeed?” I answered.

“Seemed to think,” he continued, “that things had been growing a bit rough for you, losing those pupils after you’d been at the expense of taking the Grange, and all that, you know.”

“It was rather bad luck,” I admitted quietly.

“I’ve been wondering,” he continued, with some diffidence, “whether you’d care for a bit of work in my office, just to carry you along till things looked up.  Blanche, she was set upon it that I should ask you anyway.  Of course, you being a college young gentleman might not care about it, but there’s times when any sort of a job is better than none, eh?”

“It is very kind of you, Mr. Moyat,” I answered, “and very kind of Miss Blanche to have thought of it.  A week ago I shouldn’t have hesitated.  But within the last few days I have had a sort of offer—­I don’t know whether it will come to anything, but it may.  Might I leave it open for the present?”

I think that Mr. Moyat was a little disappointed.  He flicked the cob with the whip, and looked straight ahead into the driving mist.

“Just as you say,” he declared.  “I ain’t particular in want of any one, but I’m getting to find my own bookkeeping a bit hard, especially now that my eyes ain’t what they were.  Of course it would only be a thirty bob a week job, but I suppose you’d live on that all right, unless you were thinking of getting married, eh?”