Next morning he made an expedition to Lincoln’s Inn Fields to see Messrs. Furnival and Co., taking the packet with him.  The partner who had the matter in hand was engaged, and he was kept waiting for nearly half an hour, in a dusty room with an elaborately moulded ceiling, and a carved wooden chimney-piece and scrolled panelling of some beauty, both disfigured with thick layers of dingy brown paint.  A fire had just been lighted, in deference to the unseasonable coldness of the June day, and the room was full of pungent smoke.

As he waited his irritation increased.  Lightmark’s impertinent intrusion (such it appeared to him) and the scene which had ensued, had entirely aroused him from the state of indifference into which, when the incident occurred, he was beginning to relapse.  The man was dangerous; a malign passion, a craving for vengeance, slept in him, born of his southern blood, and glancing out now and again at his eyes, like the fire which darts from the windows of a burning building.

He wondered now, as he thought of the wrongs he had borne, as it seemed to him, so patiently; in Rainham’s lifetime there had doubtless been reasons, but was he never to retaliate?  Had not he considered other people enough?  His forbearance struck him now as a kind of weakness, as something almost contemptible, to be thought of with a feeling akin to shame.

Finally he was ushered up into Mr. Furnival’s room, a pleasant apartment on the first floor, with windows looking out upon a charming oasis of grass and trees.  The lawyer apologized for keeping him waiting, intimated delicately that he had a pressing appointment in five minutes’ time, and expressed his sympathy with Oswyn’s difficulty as to the letters.

“It’s quite a matter for you to decide,” he said.  “If you like to take the responsibility you may burn them forthwith, unread; or you may give them to me, to file with the other papers.  But I should advise you to glance through the later letters, at all events.  May I look at them?  Thanks.”

Oswyn had given him the packet of letters, and he spread them out on the table at which he was sitting, methodically, in little heaps, clearing a space among the piles of drafts and abstracts which lay before him.

“I think we may destroy these,” said Oswyn, pointing to the little bundle tied up with riband.  “I think I know what they are.”

“As you like,” said Mr. Furnival; “they appear to be from a lady.  Yes, I don’t think you need read them.”

“And these,” continued Oswyn.  “They are all from Lady Garnett, and it is extremely unlikely that they can have any business reference.”

“That disposes of nearly all,” said the lawyer cheerfully.  “I may put them on the fire, then?”

Oswyn bowed a grave assent, and Mr. Furnival dropped the little packets quickly into the hottest part of the fire.

“Now, here is a letter with a very recent postmark,” he continued.  “A man’s writing, too, I should say.  Will you read this, while I go through the others?  It looks like rather a long epistle.”