Six days later Manton found himself once more in Lymington, alone in Treves's lodgings, in the crowded room, littered with that young man's desirable possessions. Those possessions were, for the time being, his own; even Treves's name was his, for, carrying out his bargain, Treves had vanished from the scene. Again Manton fell to wondering why the other had been so anxious to dispossess himself of name and identity. There was nothing criminal in the matter, he was assured of that, otherwise Captain Gilbert would not have had a hand in it. The idea that the Lieutenant had suffered from shell-shock, and desired to hide himself from all who knew him for a time until he had recovered, came to Manton, and struck him as feasible. He had himself known quite a number of peculiar manifestations of this particularly mysterious disease. In any case, whatever Treves's reasons, it mattered little to Manton at that moment.
"I have simply got to make myself act as Treves, and to do the best I can in Treves's shoes for the time being."
A few days earlier the young man had written him a letter in which he had said: "Use everything of mine as if it were your own. It is only fair if you get the kicks meant for me, you should get the ha'pence as well. I have few relations, and none of them are likely to bother you. When we shall meet again I do not know, but, in the meantime, au revoir. I wonder what you will feel like this time next year?"
Manton, in the quiet of the room, took some considerable time trying to realise his new circumstances, and gradually the sense of strangeness and mystery that enveloped him began to fade away. In all his life Manton had been used to the buffets and hard knocks of Fate; he began to wonder what his immediate future in Treves's shoes held for him. Both parents having died in India, he had been educated from a small fund in the hands of a guardian, first in Germany, and later at Rugby. After that he spent two years at Bonn. His resources were at an end, and the guardian, feeling that he had done his duty, left him to fend for himself. A period of hard going had followed, until the war broke out, whereupon he precipitately enlisted in the first hundred thousand. If he had waited a little longer a commission would have been thrust upon him as it was upon all public school men in any way eligible. Treves's past, Manton surmised, had not been of that nature, for despite the poorness of the young man's lodgings, all his belongings were of the costliest order. And all these belongings were now his, Manton's, to do with as he liked. The idea came to him to write to Captain Gilbert, thanking him for the amicable intervention that had wrought this change in his circumstances. He sat down, drew forth a sheet of Treves's notepaper, and had taken up a pen when a knock came at the door, and the landlady appeared.
"You'd like some tea, sir, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, thank you," answered the young man.
"I've dusted the room every day, sir, since you've been away," said the landlady.
"It's exactly as I left it," responded he truthfully. She was looking at him across the width of the little room, but there was no doubt or curiosity in her gaze; she had accepted him instantly on his arrival that day as Bernard Treves, and even now, looking at him full and closely, no thought of deception entered her mind. "I wonder what she'd think," he pondered inwardly, "if Treves were to come in behind her now."
But no such dramatic event occurred; the landlady brought up his tea, and later furnished him with a bottle of whisky, a siphon of soda, and a glass.
Next morning, when she cleared these things away, she was surprised to find that no more than one peg of whisky had been taken.