“I have something to say to you,” he went on in that same tone. His face I couldn’t see in that little, dark drainpipe of a passage where we stood. “That’s why I came.”

“Oh!”

What could it be that brought him an eight hours’ journey on my track? Surely not that foolish old out-of-date apology still—or those unwanted thanks for saving his life.

“Don’t you want to hear what it is?”

“Er—yes; oh, yes,” reluctantly. “But I’m sorry I can’t ask you to sit down here; you see my friend is away——”

“Oh! She’s away. I’m glad she’s well enough. I thought she was ill.”

This I didn’t know how to meet.

“Where may I speak to you, then?” he added.

“Is it—about something very important?”

“Important enough to bring me up to London by the midnight train after you’d left. I just had a bath and breakfast at an hotel and came on here. So—”