y on the previous day with
a more than usually long list of offences. He read of three murders,
five manslaughters, seven arsons, and as many as eleven rapes--a
surprisingly high number--in addition to many less conspicuous crimes, to
be tried during a coming Sessions; and from one piece of news he went on
to another, keeping the paper well before his face.

And still, inseparable from his reading, was the memory of Irene's
tear-stained face, and the sounds from her broken heart.

The day was a busy one, including, in addition to the ordinary affairs of
his practice, a visit to his brokers, Messrs. Grin and Grinning, to give
them instructions to sell his shares in the New Colliery Co., Ltd., whose
business he suspected, rather than knew, was stagnating (this enterprise
afterwards slowly declined, and was ultimately sold for a song to an
American syndicate); and a long conference at Waterbuck, Q.C.'s chambers,
attended by Boulter, by Fiske, the junior counsel, and Waterbuck, Q.C.,
himself.

The case of Forsyte v. Bosinney was expected to be reached on the morrow,
before Mr. Justice Bentham.

Mr. Justice Bentham, a man of common-sense rather than too great legal
knowledge, was considered to be about the best man they could have to try
the action. He was a 'strong' Judge.

Waterbuck, Q.C., in pleasing conjunction with an almost rude neglect of
Boulter and Fiske paid to Soames a good deal of attention, by instinct or
the sounder evidence of rumour, feeling him to be a man of property.

He held with remarkable consistency to the opinion he had already
expressed in writing, that the issue would depend to a great extent on
the evidence given at the trial, and in a few well directed remarks he
advised Soames not to be too careful in giving that evidence. "A little
bluffness, Mr. Forsyte," he said, "a little bluffness," and after he had
spoken he laughed firmly, closed his lips tight, and scratched his head
just below where he had pushed his wig back, for all the world like the
gentleman-farmer for whom he loved to be taken. He was considered
perhaps the leading man in breach of promise cases.

Soames used the underground again in going home.

The fog was worse than ever at Sloane Square station. Through the still,
thick blur, men groped in and out; women, very few, grasped their
reticules to their bosoms and handkerchiefs to their mouths; crowned with
the weird excrescence of the driver, haloed by a vague glow of l