'I have heard of it only to-day.'

'I do wish you had! We should have been so anxious to know how he impressed you.'

'My mother has got hold of the notion,' put in John Yule, 'that he's not exactly compos mentis. I'll admit that he went on in a queer sort of way the last time I saw him.'

'And my husband thinks he is rather strange,' remarked Mrs Carter.

'He has gone back to the hospital, I understand--'

'To a new branch that has just been opened in the City Road,' replied Mrs Yule. 'And he's living in a dreadful place--one of the most shocking alleys in the worst part of Islington. I should have gone to see him, but I really feel afraid; they give me such an account of the place. And everyone agrees that he has such a very wild look, and speaks so strangely.'

'Between ourselves,' said John, 'there's no use in exaggerating. He's living in a vile hole, that's true, and Carter says he looks miserably ill, but of course he may be as sane as we are.

Jasper listened to all this with no small astonishment.