But, arrived in the dingy streets, and walking towards Chelsea under a drizzling rain, the bright picture began to grow dim.

Was it not more than likely that Charlotte would be absent from London at this dismal season?
Was it not very probable that Philip Sheldon would give him the cold shoulder?
With these gloomy contingencies before him, Mr.Hawkehurst tried to shut Miss Halliday's image altogether out of his mind, and to contemplate the more practical aspect of his affairs.
"I wonder whether that scoundrel Paget has come back to London ?" he thought.

"What am I to say to him if he has?
If I own to having seen him in Ullerton, I shall lay myself open to being questioned by him as to my own business in that locality.

Perhaps my wisest plan would be to say nothing, and hear his own account of himself.

I fully believe he saw me on the platform that night when we passed each other without speaking." Horatio Paget was at home when his _protege_ arrived.