with
it to catch the mail on its way through to London.

The next thing was to go to the justice of the peace. The nearest lived
about five miles off, and was well acquainted with my mistress. He was
an old bachelor, and he kept house with his brother, who was a widower.
The two were much respected and beloved in the county, being kind,
unaffected gentlemen, who did a great deal of good among the poor. The
justice was Mr. Robert Nicholson, and his brother, the widower, was Mr.
Philip.

I had got my hat on, and was asking the groom which horse I had better
take, when an open carriage drove up to the house. It contained Mr.
Philip Nicholson and two persons in plain clothes, not exactly servants
and not exactly gentlemen, as far as I could judge. Mr. Philip looked
at me, when I touched my hat to him, in a very grave, downcast way, and
asked for my mistress. I told him she was ill in bed. He shook his head
at hearing that, and said he wished to speak to me in private. I showed
him into the library. One of the men in plain clothes followed us, and
sat in the hall. The other waited with the carriage.

"I was just going out, sir," I said, as I set a chair for him, "to speak
to Mr. Robert Nicholson about a very extraordinary circumstance--"

"I know what you refer to," said Mr. Philip, cutting me short rather
abruptly; "and I must beg, for reasons which will presently appear, that
you will make no statement of any sort to me until you have first heard
what I have to say. I am here on a very serious and a very shocking
errand, which deeply concerns your mistress and you."

His face suggested something worse than his words expressed. My heart
began to beat fast, and I felt that I was turning pale.

"Your master, Mr. James Smith," he went on, "came here unexpectedly
yesterday evening, and slept in this house last night. Before he retired
to rest he and your mistress had high words together, which ended, I am
sorry to hear, in a threat of a serious nature addressed by Mrs. James
Smith to her husband. They slept in separate rooms. This morning you
went into your master's room and saw no sign of him there. You only
found his nightgown on the bed, spotted with blood."

"Yes, sir," I said, in as steady a voice as I could command. "Quite
true."

"I am not examining you," said Mr. Philip. "I am only making a certain
statement, the truth of which you can admit or deny before my brother."

"Before your brother, sir!" I repeated.