He was a tall man with a fair beard, not one whit like Gerald, and yet tolerably good looking; if I say more I shall seem to be describing myself. I fancied him to be balder about the temples, however, and grayer and more careworn than the man I am in the habit of seeing in my shaving glass. His eyes, too, had a hard look, and he seemed in ill health. All these things I took in later. At the time I only noticed his clothes. "So the old gentleman is dead," I thought, "and the young one's tale is true, after all?" George Ritherdon was in deep mourning.
"I wrote to you," I began, taking the seat to which he pointed, "about a fortnight ago."
He looked at my card, which he held in his hand. "I think not," he said slowly.
"Yes," I repeated. "You were then at the London and Northwestern Hotel, at Liverpool."
He was stepping to his writing table, but he stopped abruptly. "I was in Liverpool," he answered, in a different tone, "but I was not at that hotel. You are thinking of my brother, are you not?"
"No," I said. "It was your brother who told me you were there."
"Perhaps you had better explain what was the subject of your letter," he suggested, speaking in the weary tone of one returning to a painful matter. "I have been through a great trouble lately, and this may well have been overlooked."
I said I would, and as briefly as possible I told the main facts of my strange visit in Fitzhardinge Square. He was much moved, walking up and down the room as he listened, and giving vent to exclamations from time to time, until I came to the arrangement I had finally made with his brother. Then he raised his hand as one might do in pain.
"Enough!" he said abruptly. "Barnes told me a rambling tale of some stranger. I understand it all now."
"So do I, I think!" I replied dryly. "Your brother went to Liverpool, and received the papers in your name?"