was the explanation? Was it her unusual surroundings? Her occupation and
rather recondite learning? Her striking personality and exceptional good
looks? Or her connection with the dramatic mystery of her lost uncle?

I concluded that it was all of these. Everything connected with her was
unusual and arresting; but over and above these circumstances there was
a certain sympathy and personal affinity of which I was strongly
conscious and of which I dimly hoped that she, perhaps, was a little
conscious, too. At any rate, I was deeply interested in her; of that
there was no doubt whatever. Short as our acquaintance had been, she
held a place in my thoughts that had never been held by any other woman.

From Ruth Bellingham my reflections passed by a natural transition to
the curious story that her father had told me. It was a queer affair,
that ill-drawn will, with the baffled lawyer protesting in the
background. It almost seemed as if there must be something behind it
all, especially when I remembered Mr. Hurst's very singular proposal.
But it was out of _my_ depth; it was a case for a lawyer, and to a
lawyer it should go. This very night, I resolved, I would go to
Thorndyke and give him the whole story as it had been told to me.

And then there happened one of those coincidences at which we all wonder
when they occur, but which are so frequent as to have become enshrined
in a proverb. For, even as I formed the resolution, I observed two men
approaching from the direction of Blackfriars, and recognised in them my
quondam teacher and his junior.

"I was just thinking about you," I said as they came up.

"Very flattering," replied Jervis; "but I thought you had to talk of the