Sir; and, though they may grumble
over it, I warrant they'll find it.'

'Sir,' said Mervyn, suddenly, 'I cannot thank you half enough. This
statement, should it appear attached, as you suppose, to the
certificate, may possibly place me on the track of that lost witness,
who yet may restore my ruined name and fortunes. I thank you, Sir. From
my heart I _do_ thank you.'

And he grasped Dangerfield's white thin hand in his, with a fervour how
unlike his cold greeting of only a few minutes before, and shook it with
an eager cordiality.

Thus across the grave of these old Lowes did the two shake hands, as
they had never done before; and Dangerfield, white and glittering, and
like a frolicsome man, entering into a joke, wrung his with an
exaggerated demonstration, and then flung it downward with a sudden
jerk, as if throwing down a glove. The gesture, the smile, and the
suspicion of a scowl, had a strange mixture of cordiality, banter and
defiance, and he was laughing a quiet 'ha, ha, ha;' and, wagging his
head, he said--

'Well, I thought 'twould please you to hear this; and anything more I
can do or think of is equally at your service.'

So, side by side they returned, picking their steps among the graves and
head-stones, to the old church porch.

For a day or two after the storm, the temper of our cynical friend of
the silver spectacles had suffered. Perhaps he did not like the news
which had reached him since, and would have preferred that Charles
Nutter had made good his escape from the gripe of justice.

The management of Lord Castlemallard's Irish estates had devolved
provisionally upon Mr. Dangerfield during the absence of Nutter and the
coma of his rival; and the erect white gentleman, before his desk in his
elbow-chair, when, after his breakfast, about to open the letters and
the books relating to this part of his charge, used sometimes to grin
over his work, and jabber to himself his hard scoffs and gibes over the
sins and follies of man, and the chops and changes of this mortal life.

But from and after the night of the snow-storm he had contracted a
disgust for this part of his labours, and he used to curse Nutter with
remarkable intensity, and with an iteration which, to a listener who
thought that even the best thing may be said too often, would have been
tiresome.

Perhaps a little occurrence, which Mr. Dangerfield himself utterly
despised, may have had something to do with his bitter temper, and ga