He was always at his office-desk for half an hour in the morning, before the clerks had come, and on the following day, a minute or two after he had taken his seat, she knocked at the door.

He was busy reading a letter from Lord Rufford's man of business, asking him certain questions about Goarly and almost employing him to get up the case on Lord Rufford's behalf.

There was a certain triumph to him in this.

It was not by his means that tidings had reached Lord Rufford of his refusal to undertake Goarly's case.

But Runciman, who was often allowed by his lordship to say a few words to him in the hunting-field, had mentioned the circumstance.