had written to him, saying that she had been summoned to the office of Messrs. Round and Crook, and would there declare all that she knew about the matter. At the same time she returned to him a money order which he had sent to her.
Punctually at twelve he was in Bedford Row, and there he saw a respectable-looking female sitting at the fire in the inner part of the outer office. This was Bridget Bolster, but he would by no means have recognized her. Bridget had risen in the world and was now head chambermaid at a large hotel in the west of England. In that capacity she had laid aside whatever diffidence may have afflicted her earlier years, and was now able to speak out her mind before any judge or jury in the land. Indeed she had never been much afflicted by such diffidence, and had spoken out her evidence on that former occasion, now twenty years since, very plainly. But as she now explained to the head clerk, she had at that time been only a poor ignorant slip of a girl, with no more than eight pounds a year wages.
Dockwrath bowed to the head clerk, and passed on to Mat Round's private room. 'Mr. Matthew is inside, I suppose,' said he, and hardly waiting for permission he knocked at the door, and then entered. There he saw Mr. Matthew Round, sitting in his comfortable arm-chair, and opposite to him sat Mr. Mason of Groby Park.
Mr. Mason got up and shook hands with the Hamworth attorney, but Round junior made his greeting without rising, and merely motioned his visitor to a chair.
'Mr. Mason and the young ladies are quite well, I hope?' said Mr. Dockwrath, with a smile.
'Quite well, I thank you,’ said the county magistrate.
'This matter has progressed since I last had the pleasure of seeing them. You begin to think I was right; eh, Mr. Mason?'
'Don't let us triumph till we are out of the wood?' said Mr. Round. 'It is a deal easier to spend money in such an affair as this than it is to make money by it. However we shall hear to-day more about it.'
'I do not know about making money,' said Mr. Mason, very solemnly. 'But that I have been robbed by that woman out of my just rights in that estate for the last twenty years,—that I may say I do know.'
'Quite true, Mr. Mason; quite true,' said Mr. Dockwrath with considerable energy.
'And whether I make money or whether I lose money I intend to proceed in this matter. It is dreadful to think that in this free and enlightened country so abject an offender should have been able to hold her head up so long without punishment and without disgrace.'
'That is exactly what I feel,' said Dockwrath. 'The very stones and trees of Hamworth cry out against her.'
