en
so gross a case of injustice.

One of his humble patients followed him, and said, "I wish I had known,
sir; you shouldn't have come here to be insulted. Why, no gentleman
can ever get justice against a servant girl when HE is sitting. It is
notorious, and that makes these hussies so bold. I've seen that jade
here with the same story twice afore."

Staines reached home more discomposed than he could have himself
believed. The reason was that barefaced injustice in a court of justice
shook his whole faith in man. He opened the street door with his
latch-key, and found two men standing in the passage. He inquired what
they wanted.

"Well, sir," said one of them, civilly enough, "we only want our due."

"For what?"

"For goods delivered at this house, sir. Balance of account." And he
handed him a butcher's bill, L88, 11s. 5 1/2d.

"You must be mistaken; we run no bills here. We pay ready money for
everything."

"Well, sir," said the butcher, "there have been payments; but the
balance has always been gaining; and we have been put off so often, we
determined to see the master. Show you the books, sir, and welcome."

"This instant, if you please." He took the butcher's address, who then
retired, and the other tradesman, a grocer, told him a similar tale;
balance, sixty pounds odd.

He went to the butcher's, sick at heart, inspected the books, and saw
that, right or wrong, they were incontrovertible; that debt had been
gaining slowly, but surely, almost from the time he confided the
accounts to his wife. She had kept faith with him about five weeks, no
more.

The grocer's books told a similar tale.

The debtor put his hand to his heart, and stood a moment. The very
grocer pitied him, and said, "There's no harry, doctor; a trifle on
account, if settlement in full not convenient just now. I see you have
been kept in the dark."

"No, no," said Christopher; "I'll pay every shilling." He gave one gulp,
and hurried away.

At the fishmonger's, the same story, only for a smaller amount.

A bill of nineteen pounds at the very pastrycook's; a place she had
promised him, as her physician, never to enter.

At the draper's, thirty-seven pounds odd.

In short, wherever she had dealt, the same system: partial payments, and
ever-growing debt.

Remembering Madame Cie, he drove in a cab to Regent Street, and asked
for Mrs. Staines's account.

"Shall I send it, sir?"

"No; I will take it with me."

"Miss Edwards, m