alive, may have remained unmarried. In that event, I am heir to a
barren title, and it may save you some trouble if I inform you that I
am leaving England. For reasons of no consequence, I am passing under
the name of Richard King. If I return, or settle down in some other
land, I will write to you, say, after the lapse of a year. Please
regard this note as strictly private, and do not interpret it as
foreshadowing any attempt on my part to arrive at a reconciliation with
Sir Henry Royson."

He was about to add the briefest announcement of his new career, but
he checked himself; had not von Kerber forbidden the giving of any
information?

He signed the letter, and addressed it to the senior partner of a firm
of solicitors in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Then, indeed, he felt that he
had snapped the last slender link that bound him to the dull life of
the city. Like Kent, he vowed that "freedom lies hence, and banishment
is here." And he had always hated Brixton, which was unjust to that
pleasant suburb, but the days of his sojourn there had been days of
bondage.

He was among the first to secure a seat in the Continental mail. Having
registered those superb trunks through to Marseilles, and reserved a
comfortable corner by depositing his valise there, he strolled up and
down the platform, and quietly scrutinized his fellow passengers. So
far as he could judge, none of the earlier arrivals were prospective
shipmates. Two bronzed men, of free gait, with that trick of carrying
the hands back to front which singles out the sailor from the rest of
humanity, drew him like a lodestone. But he soon discovered that they
were P. & O. officers, bidding farewell to a friend bound for Egypt.