But the force which had prompted it, though latent, remained with him
and ultimately grew stronger. The upshot was that about four months
after the date of his illness and disclosure, Millborne found himself
on a mild spring morning at Paddington Station, in a train that was
starting for the west. His many intermittent thoughts on his broken
promise from time to time, in those hours when loneliness brought him
face to face with his own personality, had at last resulted in this
course.

The decisive stimulus had been given when, a day or two earlier, on
looking into a Post-Office Directory, he learnt that the woman he had
not met for twenty years was still living on at Exonbury under the
name she had assumed when, a year or two after her disappearance from
her native town and his, she had returned from abroad as a young
widow with a child, and taken up her residence at the former city.
Her condition was apparently but little changed, and her daughter
seemed to be with her, their names standing in the Directory as 'Mrs.
Leonora Frankland and Miss Frankland, Teachers of Music and Dancing.'

Mr. Millborne reached Exonbury in the afternoon, and his first
business, before even taking his luggage into the town, was to find
the house occupied by the teachers. Standing in a central and open
place it was not difficult to discover, a well-burnished brass
doorplate bearing their names prominently. He hesitated to enter
without further knowledge, and ultimately took lodgings over a
toyshop opposite, securing a sitting-room which faced a similar
drawing or sitting-room at the Franklands', where the dancing lessons
were given. Installed here he was enabled to make indirectly, and
without suspicion, inquiries and observations on the character of the