“Good morning, Mr. Brainard,” said Markland, with a blending of respect and familiarity in his voice.

“Ah, Mr. Markland!” returned the other, rising, and shaking the hand of his visitor cordially.  “When did you get back from New York?”

“Yesterday afternoon.  I called after my arrival, but you had left your office.”

“Well, what news do you bring home?  Is every thing to your mind?”

“Entirely so, Mr. Brainard.”

“That’s clever—­that’s right.  I was sure you would find it so.  Lyon is shrewd and sharp-sighted as an eagle.  We have not mistaken our man, depend on it.”

“I think not.”

“I know we have not,” was the confident rejoinder.

“Any further word from him, since I left?”

“I had a letter yesterday.  He was about leaving for Mexico.”

“Are you speaking of Mr. Lyon, the young Englishman whom I saw in your office frequently, a short time since?” inquired a gentleman who sat reading the morning paper.

“The same,” replied Mr. Brainard.

“Did you say he had gone to Mexico?”

“Yes, or was about leaving for that country.  So he informed me in a letter I received from him yesterday.”

“In a letter?” The man’s voice expressed surprise.

“Yes.  But why do you seem to question the statement?”

“Because I saw him in the city day before yesterday.”

“In the city!”

“Yes, sir.  Either him or his ghost.”

“Oh! you’re mistaken.”

“I think not.  It is rarely that I’m mistaken in the identity of any one.”

“You are, assuredly, too certain in the present instance,” said Mr. Markland, turning to the gentleman who had last spoken, “for, it’s only a few days since I received letters from him written at Savannah.”

Still the man was positive.

“He has a hair-mole on his cheek, I believe.”

Mr. Brainard and Mr. Markland looked at each other doubtingly.

“He has,” was admitted by the latter.

“But that doesn’t make identity,” said Mr. Brainard, with an incredulous smile.  “I’ve seen many men, in my day, with moles on their faces.”

“True enough,” was answered; “but you never saw two Mr. Lyons.”

“You are very positive,” said Mr. Brainard, growing serious.  “Now, as we believe him to be at the South, and you say that he was here on the day before yesterday, the matter assumes rather a perplexing shape.  If he really was here, it is of the first importance that we should know it; for we are about trusting important interests to his hands.  Where, then, and under what circumstances, did you see him?”

“I saw him twice.”

“Where?”

“The first time, I saw him alighting from a carriage, at the City Hotel.  He had, apparently, just arrived, as there was a trunk behind the carriage.”

“Singular!” remarked Mr. Brainard, with a slightly disturbed manner.