CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
THE HEIR OF MAXFIELD COMES OF AGE.
It wanted but a month to Roger's majority, that important day on which the fate of so many persons was to be decided, when a letter was delivered to the heir of Maxfield as he sat at breakfast.
The weeks that had passed since Captain Oliphant's sudden death had been uneventful.

To Rosalind and Roger the discovery that they loved one another went far to lighten the sorrow which had befallen both--one in the death of a father, the other in what appeared to be the hopeless loss of a brother.
Roger had by no means yet abandoned his search.

Twice already had he and Armstrong been up to London to make inquiries, but without avail.
The billiard-marker of "L'Hotel Soult" had vanished as completely as-- well, as Mr Ratman.
"You know, of course," said the tutor once, with the rather unsympathetic drawl in which he was wont to allude to the lost Ingleton--"you know, of course, that if the man you want is Ratman, you are having the assistance of the police in your search.

A warrant is out against him, and heaven and earth is being moved to capture him." Roger sighed.
"I am looking for no one but my brother," said he, "Even if he turns out to be this miscreant, I cannot help it." "Quite so.

Only it is right to remember that to find Ratman means to hang him.