; for, as we
have indicated, the opinion of a great majority was against the claim of
the young woman: nor would the decision have been suspended that day,
had not Mr. Andrews risen and made a statement--perhaps _as_ fictitious
as a counsel's conscience would permit--to the effect that the agent
(Mr. White) had procured some trace of the butler Cowie, who could throw
more light on the case than Death had done, and that if some time were
accorded to complete the inquiry, something might turn up which would
alter the complexion even of this Protean mystery. The request was
granted.

But, in truth, Mr. Andrews' suggestion was simply a bit of ingenuity,
intended to ward off an unfavourable judgment, and allow a development
of the chapter of accidents;--a wise policy; for as the womb of Time is
never empty, so Fate writes in the morning a chapter of every man's life
of a day, at which in the evening he is sometimes a little surprised. No
trace had yet been got of Cowie; it was not even known whether he was
alive. But if we throw some fourteen days into the wallet-bag of Saturn,
we may come to a day whereupon a certain person, in an inn far down in a
valley of Westmoreland, and in the little town called Kirby Lonsdale,
was busy reading the _Caledonian Mercury_--for it was not more easy to
say where the winged _Mercury_ of that time would not go, than it is to
tell where a certain insect without wings, "which aye travels south,"
might not be found in England as an immigrant. It was at least no wonder
that the paper should contain an account of the romance wrapped up in
the case Napier _versus_ Napier; and certainty, if we could have judged
from the face of the individual, we would have set him down as one given
to the reading of riddles; for, after he had perused the paragraph, he
looked as if he knew more about that case than all the fifteen, with the
macers to boot. Nor was he contented with an indication of a mere look
of wisdom: he actually burst out into a laugh--an expression wondrously
unsuited to the gravity of the subject. You who read this will no doubt
suspect that we are merely shading this man for the sake of effect: and
this is true; but you are to remember that, while we are chroniclers of
things mysterious, we work for the advantage to you of putting into your
power to venture a shrewd guess; in making which, you are only working
in the destined vocation of man, for the world is only guesswork all
over, and you