I have a word or two to say
to Miss Mackenzie, which I had rather say to her alone."

"Certainly," said Mr Ball, rising and preparing to go.

"You will wait for me, John," said Miss Mackenzie, asking this favour
of him as though she were very anxious that he should grant it.

Mr Slow said that he might be closeted with Miss Mackenzie for some
little time, perhaps for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. John
Ball looked at his watch, and then at his cousin's face, and then
promised that he would wait. Mr Slow himself took him into the outer
office, and then handed him a chair; but he observed that he was not
allowed to go back into the waiting-room.

There he waited for three-quarters of an hour, constantly looking at
his watch, and thinking more and more about that deed of gift. Surely
it must be the case that the document which he had seen had some
reference to this great delay. At last he heard a door open, and a
step along a passage, and then another door was opened, and Mr Slow
reappeared with Margaret Mackenzie behind him. John Ball's eyes
immediately fell on his cousin's face, and he could see that it was
very pale. The lawyer's wore that smile which men put on when they
wish to cover the disagreeable seriousness of the moment.

"Good morning, Miss Mackenzie," said he, pressing his client's hand.

"Good morning, sir," said she.

The lawyer and Mr Ball then touched each other's hands, and the
former followed his cousin down the steps out into the square.

CHAPTER XVIII

Tribulation

When they were once more out in the square, side by side, Miss
Mackenzie took hold of her cousin's arm and walked on for a few steps
in silence, in the direction of Great Queen Street--that is to say,
away from the city, towards which she knew her cousin would go in
pursuit of his own business. And indeed the hour was now close at
hand in which he should be sitting as a director at the Shadrach
Fire Assurance Office. If not at the Shadrach by two, or, with all
possible allowance for the shortcoming of a generally punctual
director, by a quarter past two, he would be too late for his guinea;
and now, as he looked at his watch, it wanted only ten minutes to
two. He was very particular about these guineas, and the chambers of
the Shadrach were away in Old Broad Street. Nevertheless he walked on
with her.

"John," she said, when they had walked half the length of that side
of the square, "I have heard dreadful news