"Did the old gentleman persist in his determination to leave the country?" asked Hopkins.
"He did. He sailed for the United States on a small freight schooner that night, and reached New York in time to hear in that far-off clime of the marriage of his supposed victim; but I must not anticipate," said the exile.
"For three weeks after that horrible day I never caught sight of my missing person, nor did I discover the slightest clue as to its whereabouts. It never turned up at my quarters that I could learn, but that it was not dead or buried I had good reason to believe; for one morning, while I was away from my rooms floating along Rotten Row, hoping to catch sight of myself if perchance I still lived, four truckmen arrived at the Temple here and moved all my clothes and furniture, whither I never discovered, in consequence of which act, upon my return here, I found the room cold and bare as a barn."
"That was rank robbery," said Toppleton.
"We should have trouble in establishing that fact in court," returned the exile. "I could not deny on oath that my hand had penned the order for the removal of the goods, and as for the clothes and other things, most of them had been bought by the money I had earned through the fiend's instrumentality."
"That is so," said Toppleton, hastily acquiescing in the exile's words, lest he should seem to his visitor less acute than a full-fledged lawyer should be. "And how long was it before you encountered yourself once more?"
"Three weeks," returned the exile. "And where do you suppose the meeting took place?"
"I don't know," said Hopkins. "At Buckingham Palace?"
"No, sir. In Arabella's parlour! It was just three weeks from the hour in which Mr. Hicksworthy-Johnstone appeared at my office door in the Temple that, for the want of something better to do, I floated into Arabella's parlour again, and was filled with consternation to see standing there before the mirror, adjusting his tie, the fiend in full possession of my treasured self. I was about to utter a cry of delight when I heard an ejaculation of fear behind me, and turning saw Arabella herself entering the room, pale as a sheet. I tell you Hopkins, it was dramatic; though, as far as the fiend was concerned, he was as nonchalant as could be.