I had made all the necessary arrangements for the trial,
when I received a letter from Germany. My charming client had changed
her mind, and declined to apply for the Divorce. There was my reward for
having been too clever!"

"I don't understand you."

"My dear fellow, you are dull to-night. I had been so successful in
protecting Mrs. Linley and the child, and my excellent courier had
found such a charming place of retreat for them in one of the suburbs of
Hanover, that 'she saw no reason now for taking the shocking course
that I had recommended to her--so repugnant to all her most cherished
convictions; so sinful and so shameful in its doing of evil that good
might come. Experience had convinced her that (thanks to me) there was
no fear of Kitty being discovered and taken from her. She therefore
begged me to write to my agent in Edinburgh, and tell him that her
application to the court was withdrawn.' Ah, you understand my position
at last. The headstrong woman was running a risk which renewed all my
anxieties. By every day's post I expected to hear that she had paid the
penalty of her folly, and that your brother had succeeded in getting
possession of the child. Wait a little before you laugh at me. But for
the courier, the thing would have really happened a week since."

Randal looked astonished. "Months must have passed," he objected.
"Surely, after that lapse of time, Mrs. Linley must have been safe from
discovery."

"Take your own positive view of it! I only know that the thing happened.
And why not? The luck had begun by being on one side--why shouldn't the
other side have had its turn next?"

"Do you really believe in luck?"

"Devoutly. A lawyer must believe in something. He knows the law too well
to put any faith in that: and his clients present to him (if he is a man
of any feeling) a hideous view of human nature. The poor devil believes
in luck--rather than believe in nothing. I think it quite likely that
accident helped the person employed by the husband to discover the wife
and child. Anyhow, Mrs. Linley and Kitty were seen in the streets of
Hanover; seen, recognized, and followed. The courier happened to be with
them--luck again! For thirty years and more, he had been traveling
in every part of Europe; there was not a landlord of the smallest
pretensions anywhere who didn't know him and like him. 'I pretended not
to see that anybody was following us,' he said (writing from Hanover
to relieve my anx