“What’s up?” asked Gammon.

The other regained his self-possession, as though he had for a moment wandered mentally from the subject they were discussing.

“Forgive me.  What name did you say?  Yes, yes, Clover.  Odd name.  Tell me something about him.  Where did you know him?  What was he?”

Having gone so far, Gammon saw no reason for refusing the details of the story.  With the pleasure that every man feels in narrating circumstances known only to a few, he told all he could about the career of Mrs. Clover’s husband.  Greenacre listened with a placidly smiling attention.

“Just the kind of thing I am always coming across,” he remarked.  “Everyday story in London.  We must find this man.  Do you know his Christian name?”

Mrs. Clover called him Mark.

“Mark?  May or may not be his own, of course.  And now, if you permit the question, who saw this man and recognized him in the theatre?”

Gammon gave a laugh.  Then, fearing that he might convey a wrong impression, he answered seriously that it was a niece of Mrs. Clover, a young lady with whom he was on friendly terms, nothing whatever but friendly terms; a most respectable young lady—­anxious, naturally, to bring Mrs. Clover and her husband together again, but discreet enough to have kept the matter quiet as yet.  And he explained how it came about that this young lady knew only the address in Stanhope Gardens.

After reflecting upon that, Greenacre urged that it would be just as well not to take the young lady into their counsel for the present, to which his friend readily assented.  And so, when they had chatted a little longer, the man of mystery rose “to keep an appointment.”  Gammon should hear from him in a day or two.

When ten days had gone by without the fulfilment of this promise Gammon grew uneasy.  He could not communicate with Greenacre, having no idea’ where the man lived or where he was to be heard of; an inquiry at the Bilboes proved that he was not known there.  One evening Gammon went to look for himself at the house in Stanhope Gardens; he hung about the place for half an hour, but saw nothing of interest or importance.  He walked once or twice along Shaftesbury Avenue, but did not chance to meet Polly, and could not make up his mind to beg an interview with her.  At the end of a fortnight Greenacre wrote, and that evening they met again at the obscure house of entertainment.

“It is not often,” said Greenacre, in a despondent tone, “that I have found an inquiry so difficult.  Of course it interests me all the more, and I shall go on with it, but I must freely confess that I’ve got nothing yet—­absolutely nothing.”

Gammon observed him vigilantly.

“Do you know what has occurred to me?” pursued the other, with a half melancholy droop of the head.  “I really begin to fear that the young lady, your friend, may have made a mistake.”

“How can that be, when he met her twice and talked with her?”