married, but that the engagement had been broken off for reasons not
known to his informants, and he could find out nothing about the
gentleman, except that his name was Junius Keswick.

The fact that the lady had had a lover, put her in a new light before
Lawrence Croft. He had had an idea, suggested by the very friendly
nature of their intercourse, that she was a woman whose mind did not run
out to love or marriage, but now that he knew that she was susceptible
of being wooed and won, because these things had actually happened to
her, he was very glad that he had come away from Midbranch.

The impression soon became very strong upon the mind of Lawrence that he
would like to know what kind of man was this former lover. He had known
Miss March about a year, and at the time of his first acquaintaince with
her, she must have come very fresh from this engagement. To study the
man to whom Roberta March had been willing to engage herself, was, to
Lawrence's mode of thinking, if not a prerequisite procedure in his
contemplated course of action, at least a very desirable one.

But he was rather surprised to find that no one knew much about Mr
Junius Keswick, or could give him any account of his present
whereabouts, although he had been, at the time when his engagement was
in force, a resident of New York. To consult a directory was, therefore,
an obvious first step in the affair; and, with this intent, Mr Croft
entered, one morning, an apothecary's shop in a street which, though a
busy one, was in a rather out-of-the-way part of the city.

"We haven't any directory, sir," said the clerk, "but if you will step
across the street you can find one at that little shop with the green
door. Everybody goes there to look at the directory."