He had gone up to town to see his lawyer, and one of the people at the hotel where he put up happened to be one of the passengers of the _Erechtheus_, the steamer which had rescued me.

The man sat at the next table, and Turold heard him tell the story to a friend one night at dinner.

It had happened just like that--quite simply, but it was a possibility I had overlooked.

Not that it mattered, as it happened, but it would have--if Alice had been with him.
Turold, of course, kept his knowledge to himself.

He was too cautious to approach the passenger, but he instructed his lawyer to make guarded inquiries at the shipping office of the vessel in order to verify the story.