It's difficult to say. I know I made him bleed pretty freely, at one time
and another, before he turned rusty; and it's just possible I may have
had pretty nearly all he had to give."

He was in Wardour-street by this time, looking at the dimly-lighted shops
where brokers' ware of more or less value, old oak carvings, doubtful
pictures, and rusted armour loomed duskily upon the passer-by. At the
corner of Queen Anne's Court he paused, and peered curiously into the
narrow alley.

"The court is still here, at any rate," he muttered to himself, "and I
shall soon settle the other question."

His heart beat faster than it was wont to beat as he drew near his
destination. Was it any touch of real feeling, or only selfish
apprehension, that quickened its throbbing? The man's life had been so
utterly reckless of others, that it would be dangerous to give him credit
for any affectionate yearning--any natural remorseful pang in such a
moment as this. He had lived for self, and self alone; and his own
interests were involved in the issue of to-night.

A few steps brought him before Jacob Nowell's window. Yes, it was just as
he remembered it twenty years before--the same dingy old silver, the same
little heap of gold, the same tray of tarnished jewelry glimmered in the
faint light of a solitary gas-burner behind the murky glass. On the
door-plate there was still Jacob Nowell's name. Yet all this might mean
nothing. The grave might have closed over the old silversmith, and the
interest of trade necessitate the preservation of the familiar name.

The gentleman calling himself Percival went into the shop. How well he