CHAPTER IV.
CAPTAIN SCARBOROUGH'S DISAPPEARANCE.
A few days after the visits to Cheltenham, described in the last chapters, Harry Annesley, coming down a passage by the side of the Junior United Service Club into Charles Street, suddenly met Captain Scarborough at two o'clock in the morning.

Where Harry had been at that hour need not now be explained, but it may be presumed that he had not been drinking tea with any of his female relatives.
Captain Scarborough had just come out of some neighboring club, where he had certainly been playing, and where, to all appearances, he had been drinking also.

That there should have been no policemen in the street was not remarkable, but there was no one else there present to give any account of what took place during the five minutes in which the two men remained together.

Harry, who was at the moment surprised by the encounter, would have passed the captain by without notice, had he been allowed to do so; but this the captain perceived, and stopped him suddenly, taking him roughly by the collar of his coat.

This Harry naturally resented, and before a word of intelligible explanation had been given the two young men had quarrelled.
Captain Scarborough had received a long letter from Mrs.Mountjoy, praying for explanation of circumstances which could not be explained, and stating over and over again that all her information had come from Harry Annesley.
The captain now called him an interfering, meddlesome idiot, and shook him violently while holding him in his grasp.