“Doctor Winchester, do you, too, wish to give up the case; or are you willing to continue it under the conditions you know?”

“Give it up!  Less now than ever.  Miss Trelawny, I shall never give it up, so long as life is left to him or any of us!” She said nothing, but held out her hand, which he took warmly.

“Now,” said she, “if Sir James Frere is a type of the cult of Specialists, I want no more of them.  To start with, he does not seem to know any more than you do about my Father’s condition; and if he were a hundredth part as much interested in it as you are, he would not stand on such punctilio.  Of course, I am only too anxious about my poor Father; and if I can see a way to meet either of Sir James Frere’s conditions, I shall do so.  I shall ask Mr. Marvin to come here today, and advise me as to the limit of Father’s wishes.  If he thinks I am free to act in any way on my own responsibility, I shall not hesitate to do so.”  Then Doctor Winchester took his leave.

Miss Trelawny sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. Marvin, telling him of the state of affairs, and asking him to come and see her and to bring with him any papers which might throw any light on the subject.  She sent the letter off with a carriage to bring back the solicitor; we waited with what patience we could for his coming.

It is not a very long journey for oneself from Kensington Palace Gardens to Lincoln’s Inn Fields; but it seemed endlessly long when waiting for someone else to take it.  All things, however, are amenable to Time; it was less than an hour all told when Mr. Marvin was with us.

He recognised Miss Trelawny’s impatience, and when he had learned sufficient of her father’s illness, he said to her: 

“Whenever you are ready I can go with you into particulars regarding your Father’s wishes.”

“Whenever you like,” she said, with an evident ignorance of his meaning.  “Why not now?” He looked at me, as to a fellow man of business, and stammered out: 

“We are not alone.”

“I have brought Mr. Ross here on purpose,” she answered.  “He knows so much at present, that I want him to know more.”  The solicitor was a little disconcerted, a thing which those knowing him only in courts would hardly have believed.  He answered, however, with some hesitation: 

“But, my dear young lady—­Your Father’s wishes!—­Confidence between father and child—­”

Here she interrupted him; there was a tinge of red in her pale cheeks as she did so: 

“Do you really think that applies to the present circumstances, Mr. Marvin?  My Father never told me anything of his affairs; and I can now, in this sad extremity, only learn his wishes through a gentleman who is a stranger to me and of whom I never even heard till I got my Father’s letter, written to be shown to me only in extremity.  Mr. Ross is a new friend; but he has all my confidence, and I should