‘She has heard from us this morning,’ said Mr. Gamble, grining on his watch, ’and she knows all by this time, and ‘tisn’t a button to her.’

And the attorney laughed in his face; and Nutter who had looked sulky and uncomfortable, could resist no longer, and broke into a queer responsive grin.  It seemed to Toole like a horrid dream.

There was a tap at the door just at this moment.

‘Come in,’ cried Mr. Gamble, still exploding in comfortable little bursts of half-suppressed laughter.

’Oh! ‘tis you?  Very good, Sir,’ said Mr. Gamble, sobering a little.  He was the same lanky, vulgar, and slightly-squinting gentleman, pitted with the small-pox, whom Toole had seen on a former occasion.  And the little doctor thought he looked even more cunning and meaner than before.  Everything had grown to look repulsive, and every face was sinister now; and the world began to look like a horrible masquerade, full of half-detected murderers, traitors, and miscreants.

’There isn’t a soul you can trust—­’tis enough to turn a man’s head; ‘tis sickening, by George!’ grumbled the little doctor, fiercely.

‘Here’s a gentleman, Sir,’ said Gamble, waving his pen towards Toole, with a chuckle, ’who believes that ladies like to recover their husbands.’

The fellow grew red, and grinned a sly uneasy grin, looking stealthily at Toole, who was rapidly growing angry.

’Yes, Sir, and one who believes, too, that gentlemen ought to protect their wives,’ added the little doctor hotly.

‘As soon as they know who they are,’ muttered the attorney to his papers.

‘I think, gentlemen, I’m rather in your way,’ said Toole with a gloomy briskness; ’I think ’tis better I should go.  I—­I’m somewhat amazed, gentlemen, and I—­I wish you a good-morning.’

And Toole made them a very stern bow, and walked out at the wrong door.

‘This way, by your leave, doctor,’ said Mr. Gamble, opening the right one; and at the head of the stairs he took Toole by the cuff, and said he—­

’After all, ’tis but just the wrong Mrs. Nutter should give place to the right; and if you go down to the Mills to-morrow, you’ll find she’s by no means so bad as you think her.’

But Toole broke away from him sulkily, with—­

‘I wish you a good-morning, Sir.’

It was quite true that Sally Nutter was to hear from Charles and Mr. Gamble that morning; for about the time at which Toole was in conference with those two gentlemen in Dublin, two coaches drew up at the Mills.

Mr. Gamble’s conducting gentleman was in one, and two mysterious personages sat in the other.

‘I want to see Mrs. Nutter,’ said Mr. Gamble’s emissary.

‘Mrs. Nutter’s in the parlour, at your service,’ answered the lean maid who had opened the door, and who recognising in that gentleman an adherent of the enemy, had assumed her most impertinent leer and tone on the instant.