“I wrote to him again, but received no answer. A friend of mine was directed to visit him and let him have what money he desired.
“But he had removed his lodgings, and was nowhere to be found.
“There seemed to hang some mystery around Tom Templeton; some thought he ‘had been crossed in love’ while at college.
“Others said that pecuniary difficulties had involved him.
“Both of these surmises certainly must be incorrect, I thought, for he disclosed all his secrets to me. If Cupid had been in the case, some of us would have known it; as to money matters, all the college said his uncle was immensely wealthy, and intended to leave him everything.
“Mystery there seemed to be of some kind, and I was determined, upon graduating, to sift the matter to the bottom.
“I liked Tom as a brother; his troubles were mine, and, if in difficulty, I was willing to see him through it safely.
“When university dons had granted me my parchment with ‘A.M.’ engraved thereon, I returned home, and was soon engaged in my father’s extensive transactions, doing what people might term a ‘roaring’ business.
“My thoughts would occasionally revert to my lost friend, and while going homeward one evening at dusk, a poorly dressed stranger hurriedly passed me and glided into a back street, as if ashamed to be seen in lighted and thronged thoroughfares.
“I followed him.