indeed it was not easy to take note of faces
through the cloud of smoke that filled the room; he was fast relapsing
into his own reflections, wondering what Solomon was doing in the dark,
and if he slept much, when an event occurred which roused him as
thoroughly as the prick of a lance or a sudden douche of cold water.

"Let us have no misunderstanding and no obligation--that is my motto."

The speaker was a thin, gray man, whose entrance into the apartment
Balfour had not perceived, and who was seated in an elevated chair,
which had apparently been reserved for him as president of the assembly.
The face was unfamiliar, for twenty years had made an old man of the
astute and lively detective; but his phrase, and the manner of
delivering it, identified him at once as his old friend Mr. Dodge.

"It was in this very room," continued the latter, "that I sat and talked
with him as sociable as could be, not a quarter of an hour before I put
the darbies on him; and it's a thing that has been upon my mind ever
since. I was only doing my duty, of course, but still it seemed hard to
take advantage of such a frank young fellow. As for stealing them notes,
it's my belief he had no more intention of doing it than I had."

"And yet he got it hot at the 'sizes, Mr. Dodge, didn't he?" inquired
one of the company.

"Got it hot, Sir?" replied Mr. Dodge, with dignity; "he got an infamous
and most unjustly severe sentence, if you mean that, Sir. Of course what
he did was contrary to law, but it's my opinion as the law was strained
agin him. There was some as swore hard and fast to get him punished as
knew he deserved no such treatment. Why, the girl as he loved, and whose
picture I found upon him myself when I searched him, and gave it him
back, too--ay, that I did--even she took a false oath, as Weasel himself
told me, who was his lawyer, and had built up his case with that same
hussy for its corner-stone. Ah!" said Mr. Dodge, with a gesture of
abhorrence, "if there ever was a murdered man, it was that poor young
fellow, Richard Yorke."

"But I thought he got twenty years' penal servitude," observed the same
individual who had interposed before, and whose thankless office it
seemed to be to draw the old gentleman out for the benefit of society.

"I say he was murdered, Sir. He was shut up for nigh twenty years, and
then shot in the back in trying to get away from Lingmoor. It was the
hardest case I ever knew in all my professional