"That was no reason why you should knock my door down."
"Oh, it was all my impatience: my mind's in a frightful worry," penitently acknowledged Roland. "I hope you'll forgive it, sir. I've come from London, Mr. Galloway, about this miserable business of Arthur Channing. We want to know where you sent him to?"
Mr. Galloway, his doubts as to fire-engines set at rest, had been getting cool; but the name turned him hot again. He had grown to like Arthur better than he would have cared to tell; the supposition flashed into his mind that a discovery might have been made of some untoward fate having overtaken him, and that Roland's errand was to break the news.
"Is Arthur dead?" he questioned, in a low tone.
"I think so," answered Roland. "But he has not turned up yet, dead or alive. I'm sure it's not for the want of looking after. I've spent my time pretty well, since he was missing, between Waterloo Bridge and the East India Docks."
"Then you've not come down to say he is found?"
"No: only to ask you where you sent him that night, that he may be."
When the explanation was complete, Roland discovered that he had had his journey for nothing, and would have done well to take the opinion of Hamish Channing. Every tittle of information that Mr. Galloway was able to give, he had already written to Hamish: not a thought, not a supposition, but he had imparted it in full. As to Roland's idea, that business might have carried Arthur to dishonest neighbourhoods in London, Mr. Galloway negatived it positively.
"He had none to do for me in such places, and I'm sure he'd not of his own."
Roland sat pulling at his whiskers, feeling very gloomy. In his sanguine temperament, he had been buoying himself with a hope that grew higher and higher all the way down: so that when he arrived at Mr. Galloway's he had nearly persuaded himself that--if Arthur, in person, was not there, news of him would be. Hence the loud and impatient door-summons.