embrance of the
circumstances as they occurred twenty years since, and I will then
read to you her deposition. I shall be sorry, gentlemen, to keep you
here, perhaps for an hour or so, but you will find the morning papers
on the table." And then Mr. Round, gathering up certain documents,
passed into the outer office, and Mr. Mason and Mr. Dockwrath were
left alone.

"He is determined to get that woman off," said Mr. Dockwrath, in a
whisper.

"I believe him to be an honest man," said Mr. Mason, with some
sternness.

"Honesty, sir! It is hard to say what is honesty and what is
dishonesty. Would you believe it, Mr. Mason, only last night I had a
thousand pounds offered me to hold my tongue about this affair?"

Mr. Mason at the moment did not believe this, but he merely looked
hard into his companion's face, and said nothing.

"By the heavens above us what I tell you is true! a thousand pounds,
Mr. Mason! Only think how they are going it to get this thing
stifled. And where should the offer come from but from those who know
I have the power?"

"Do you mean to say that the offer came from this firm?"

"Hush-sh, Mr. Mason. The very walls hear and talk in such a place as
this. I'm not to know who made the offer, and I don't know. But a man
can give a very good guess sometimes. The party who was speaking to
me is up to the whole transaction, and knows exactly what is going on
here--here, in this house. He let it all out, using pretty nigh the
same words as Round used just now. He was full about the doubt that
Round and Crook felt--that they'd never pull it through. I'll tell
you what it is, Mr. Mason, they don't mean to pull it through."

"What answer did you make to the man?"

"What answer! why I just put my thumb this way over my shoulder.
No, Mr. Mason, if I can't carry on without bribery and corruption,
I won't carry on at all. He'd called at the wrong house with that
dodge, and so he soon found."

"And you think he was an emissary from Messrs. Round and Crook?"

"Hush-sh-sh. For heaven's sake, Mr. Mason, do be a little lower. You
can put two and two together as well as I can, Mr. Mason. I find they
make four. I don't know whether your calculation will be the same. My
belief is, that these people are determined to save that woman. Don't
you see it in that young fellow's eye--that his heart is all on the
other side. Now he's got hold of that woman Bolster, and he'll teach
her to give such evidence as will upse