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keen as a knife all through. She supposed him wholly incapable of being affected by such an appeal as she had made to Ernestine, even if genuine. She prepared herself simply to reserve from him all that he must not know. And this had to be done, not only in her words, but in every expression of her face while in his presence.

She dressed carefully, took Yriarte's letters, and drove alone, in Mrs. Honiton's carriage, to Mr. Lingen's office.

He was disengaged: he could see Miss Doldy at once. Laura left her carriage, and, gathering her dainty skirts together, passed in, much to the gratification of the clerks in the outer office, who looked admiringly after her as she vanished within Mr. Lingen's sanctum.

He sat in the dingy room, as usual, behind the table piled with dusty-looking papers, looking himself as fresh and spotless as the summer morning. He wore an abstracted air, and, holding the guard of his eye-glass in one hand, waved it gently to and fro, as though it were out of service just then, and were having a little play time.

Laura was delighted to see that when the ordinary greetings were over, and she had taken a seat, which brought her face as little under the light as possible, he fell into the same attitude and action again.

Courage rose when she found that he did not even look at her when she began to speak; and she proceeded to give a cleverly incomplete account of the affair upon which she had come.

Lewis Lingen was well accustomed to such confidences. Many a fashionable lady had sat in that chair before Laura, and had endeavoured to tell her wrongs while concealing her wrong-doings. Many a beautiful woman had been com

pelled to sit there and herself reveal the weak places in the armour of her reputation-which, if once made visible to the arch enemy who makes scandal, would have enabled the whole coat of mail to be shattered, and have left the frail and defenceless being underneath to the mercy of all the winds of malice. And if Laura had had experience of her confessor's aspect in such interviews she would have been alarmed. He had never used his keen eyes so little and had never listened to a recital with so marked a lack of interest. He wore the air of a novel reader who, on opening the first volume, is filled with a wearied sense that it is hardly worth while to ask for the third-the plot is so easily understood. Laura's actual words were the first volume of this story. To discover the whole history and amuse oneself with the intricacies of the plot, it would have been necessary to study her face, and there find the real interest of the story. But perhaps her hearer had heard too many similar ones. At all events, he did not seem to care to penetrate beyond the sketch which she vouchsafed to him.

Laura did not know enough of him to be alarmed at this; on the contrary, it relieved her immensely, and she was just pluming herself on having relieved herself of her confidences in a most creditable way, when Lingen roused himself from his abstraction, and turned to her with the languid air of a man who makes a remark which is void of interest.

"Of course the first thing, at all costs, is to regain the letters. We must not run any risk of their being published."

Laura almost gasped for breath. What did he mean? She reviewed her words hastily. She had certainly said nothing about the letters except that they had been written during her engagement. She

looked at him. His face was perfectly expressionless; his eyes had fallen upon a pile of papers in front of him, and he seemed to be reading the uppermost one. She was reassured; he meant nothing. She moved her lips with some difficulty and spoke hesitatingly.

"Certainly; any such publication would be very unpleasant."

"Humph!" said Mr. Lingen. He put his hand across the table and took up a little bundle, which Laura had put on it. They were Yriarte's letters asking for money. Mr. Lingen glanced them through, and then put up his eye-glass and turned it upon Laura.

"Mr Yriarte is a shrewd man," he said, reflectively. "He would scarcely have threatened you with the publication of these letters unless he were fully aware that the weakness of your position lay in your dreading their publication. You must have forgotten what you said in them."

Laura was at a loss for words.

But," she said, at last, "what should I have said in them?"

Mr. Lingen raised his eyebrows, and there was a curious flash in his eyes; but he was perfectly grave.

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That," he said, "I must leave to you."

Laura was dumb for a moment, paralysed with surprise and anger. She rose with dignity after a little pause; her face was flushing darkly.

"I don't understand your meaning," she said; "I will wish you a good morning.'

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Mr. Lingen rose languidly.

"Excuse me, Miss Doldy, a moment. When I undertake an affair like this I can only be of any use if I know the whole story. When a client chooses to tell me only a part of the facts, I am obliged to make up the rest from my experience and knowledge."

"I don't understand," said

Laura, standing doubtfully beside her chair.

"Unless," he went on, "you not only wish to punish Mr. Yriarte for his impertinent conduct, but also to suppress the actual facts of your connection with him, you will gain little by consulting me about it."

Laura sat down again. The flush died out of her face beneath that terrible eye-glass. She trembled beneath it. After a struggle she recalled a little of her cus. tomary presence of mind.

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I can understand now," she said, smiling faintly, "why you are so dreaded by witnesses.'

"Forgive me, Miss Doldy," he said, courteously; "I am not trying to extract anything from you. I only wish you to see that it is useless to come to me with half confidences. Perhaps, as Mr. Yriarte is no longer your lover, you will allow me to call him a scoundrel. A few months ago he was borrowing money on the assertion that he was engaged to an heiress who dared not risk her reputation by throwing him over. If you choose to allow that you were that heiress I will arrange the matter for you and get him the punishment he so richly deserves; but, if you are not that heiress, my clerk can easily manage it for you."

Laura had not heard the last words. She leaned forward in her chair with the flush rising again in her face, and one hand clenched itself fiercely as it lay in her lap.

"Dared not!" she said. "Dared not! But I did! I threw him over when I found he was a mere fortune hunter!-and he thinks to intimidate me now!"

Mr. Lingen's brow cleared-he dropped his eyeglass and smiled.

"Go straight to Dr. Doldy," he said, "and tell him as much as you told me at first. If you tell it to him as cleverly he will not suspect

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"I must tell him?" "Certainly, and at once. case will appear in the papers, unless the defendant should be frightened into reason; so that you cannot keep it secret. Besides, you must have your uncle's support."

"I will go-I will do what you tell me," said Laura, her voice trembling a little with the effort to calm herself. "I will do anything if you are sure "--she put her hand in its cream-coloured glove upon the dusty table and leaned towards him "if you are sure I shall get my revenge. I am thirsting for it."

Mr. Lingen looked up in a cool business-like way into her face. "Will five years' penal servitude do?"

Laura sprang back-her face lit suddenly with smiles of delight— she clasped her hands with effusion.

"Oh, glorious!" she ejaculated, "Oh, glorious!" she repeated musingly to herself, as, with alacrity, she gathered up her dress and stepped towards the door. Then she paused thoughtfully:

"Am I to tell my uncle I have already been here?

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"Oh, yes, don't make small concealments. You can say you came to me for advice, not wishing to distress him till you knew you must take public steps."

"Good-bye," she said, and went out, closing the door softly; but just as it was shut she opened it again and came softly and swiftly in.

"Could we not get penal servitude for life?" she asked with anxiety.

Mr. Lingen looked seriously at her. "I am afraid not," he said, "if it were not necessary to make some bargain with the defence in order to keep your secrets, doubt

less we could obtain a little more than five. But you don't wish to ruin yourself in order to ruin him ? "

"No," answered Laura, "that would be foolish;" and turned again towards the door. This time she really went; he heard the wheels of her carriage.

He threw himself back in his chair and waved his eyeglass languidly about in one hand.

"If I hadn't a considerable interest myself in that girl's fortune and if I hadn't some respect for her family," he said, smilingly, to himself, "I would let her precipitate herself upon her revenge. The little demon-thirsty for it ;and the man has been her lover!"

"I must sell up Yriarte's house at once," he added, more thoughtfully, after a little pause, " and see what is to be got out of his relations."

He rose, adjusted his buttonhole flower, took his hat, and went out.

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CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE SUN WAS DARKENED." DR. DOLDY was in the drawingroom with Ernestine, when a servant announced that Mr. Richy was in his consulting room.

They had said nothing further about the case, for both had had other things to think of. Dr. Doldy rose now, without a word, to go to his patient. Ernestine's voice arrested him, and he paused half-way to the door.

"Will you examine Mr. Richy's eyes to-day? I am so sure that you will find it a decided case of glaucoma."

"Indeed, I shall not," replied Dr. Doldy, a little hotly; "I have already satisfied myself that I have the case well in hand."

"Mr. Richy," said Ernestine, "is not the man to suffer as you

suppose he is suffering. He is abstemious, and he works hard. But he is of a feeble constitution, and it is intelligible that such a disease as glaucoma should attack him. I entreat you, if you will not examine yourself, and will not let me see him, to send him to an oculist. It is terrible to think that a brief delay may make it too late to save his sight."

"Young

doctors are often afflicted with a mania for operations, and iridectomy is a taking one. But you must find victims for yourself."

Dr. Doldy felt his temper deserting him so rapidly that he went straightway to the door after making this little speech. Ernes

tine followed him.

"I will not say another word if you will examine the eye," she said entreatingly; "but if you will not, I must see Mr. Richy myself."

"That you cannot do; he is in my consulting room.

"I will go to him there."

"Then you may go alone," cried Dr. Doldy, in a sudden uprisal of temper; and he turned back into the drawing-room.

Ernestine ran downstairs, but surely she would not go in. He did not in the least believe that she would really do this which was So distinctly against his wish.

Each second he expected to hear her returning foot upon the stairs; and, indeed, he half-pictured to himself her laughing face when her lack of courage and her inability to be disobedient should have brought her back into the drawing-room. But as the seconds passed over, his heart sank and his temper rose, for there was no sound until he heard the door of his consulting room shut. He stood still, awe-struck; and awestruck probably for the first time

in his life. Nothing less than the genius of Shakespeare had ever inspired him with reverence: awe he certainly had not experienced. But that a woman-a young inexperienced doctor and a womanshould overstep the double boundary line existing between themshould disobey him as a wife, dispute his knowledge as an elder doctor, and disregard the etiquettes of both relations, struck him with an utter amazement.

For a moment he was entirely taken aback by her audacity. But when that wave of feeling had passed, he was left only very angry. Anger pure and simple, however, occupied him but for a moment. In the next, curiosity was rampant. There was something entirely new to be seen and to be heard. As soon as this occurred to him, without the briefest hesitation, he took his way downstairs, and entered Ernestine's consulting room, which was fortunately empty. He passed straight in, entering with deliberate stealthiness the little ante-chamber which divided the two sanctums. If he had been a trifle less in earnest, he might have paused to laugh at himself for having been so easily put into his wife's position. Ernestine had many a time, and with his approval, listened at his door, to find out how he did things. Their relations were now changed. But he was quite incapable at the time of seeing the humorous side of the situation.

Anger was only kept at bay by sheer curiosity. "Dr. Doldy will be down directly," Ernestine's voice was saying at the instant. "He wished me to apologise for his delay, and he asked me in the meantime to look at your eye. I am sure you will allow me to, Mr. Richy; for you know I am a doctor,

too.

"Does he fear anything local,

then?" said Mr. Richy, in an alarmed voice.

"No," said Ernestine; "but as you suffer so much pain in it, he thought I might as well examine it; for I have been studying the eye of late under special advantages."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Richy; "of course I cannot but be delighted at the honour you are doing me. And, indeed," he added, with rather awkward jocoseness, "under such hands as yours I am sure I must soon be healed of any complaint."

Dr. Doldy groaned, and a cold dew stood out upon his forehead. This was just about as much as he could bear; and he felt strongly disposed to go in and shake the unfortunate Richy, or do something equally ridiculous. But he controlled himself with an effort, and remained motionless.

He followed the interview now partly by his own knowledge of what must be passing. He heard Ernestine ask Mr Richy to approach the window; he pictured her beautiful face with its frown of thought, as she moved about, adjusting her patient.

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"I will not dilate the pupil," he heard her say, gently, as it causes some inconvenience; but I must ask you to turn the eye towards the nose, in order that the light may be first received by the insensitive part of the optic disc,

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while they talked; but he could endure the position no longer. When they became silent, after some two or three immensely long seconds, he walked into the room.

Ernestine had just moved back, and was looking very grave. She turned to him instantly.

"The light is excellent," she said; "you had better examine the eye at once; the ophthalmoscope reveals very characteristic conditions."

She rose from her place, and handed him the little instrument -that simple, subtle, little instrument which Charles Babbage evolved out of his wonderful mind, and presented to the craft before the craft was intelligent or developed enough to know how to use it.

Dr. Doldy adopted the only possible course open to him if appearances were to be preserved. He sat down in silence, and examined the eye himself.

That done, in silence, he put down the ophthalmoscope, pushed back his chair, and rose in silence.

Ernestine looked up at him hesitatingly, and then spoke; for Mr. Richy was looking in much trepidation from one doctor to the other.

"It is as I feared, is it not?" "Yes," was Dr. Doldy's monosyllabic reply.

"What is it?" exclained Mr. Richy, in considerable alarm.

"It is a case of sub-acute glaucoma," replied Dr. Doldy.

66 Glaucoma!" exclaimed Mr. Richy. "Why, that's a disease of the eye. You are chaffing me; there is no green in my eye, Dr. Doldy; that I am positive of!"

"No," answered Dr. Doldy, gravely, "the colour in this disease is more often a whitey-brown than a grey-green. Glaucoma is rather a misnomer."

"But are you serious, then ?"

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