n all probability
an assistant spy obtained in the neighborhood. This discovery suggested
serious embarrassment in the future. Mrs. Presty asked what was to be
done next. Mr. Sarrazin answered: "Let us have our breakfast."

In another quarter of an hour they were both in Mrs. Linley's room.

Her agitated manner, her reddened eyes, showed that she was still
suffering under the emotions of the past night. The moment the lawyer
approached her, she crossed the room with hurried steps, and took both
his hands in her trembling grasp. "You are a good man, you are a kind
man," she said to him wildly; "you have my truest respect and regard.
Tell me, are you--really--really--really sure that the one way in which
I can keep my child with me is the way you mentioned last night?"

Mr. Sarrazin led her gently back to her chair.

The sad change in her startled and distressed him. Sincerely,
solemnly even, he declared that the one alternative before her was the
alternative that he had mentioned. He entreated her to control herself.
It was useless, she still held him as if she was holding to her last
hope.

"Listen to me!" she cried. "There's something more; there's another
chance for me. I must, and will, know what you think of it."

"Wait a little. Pray wait a little!"

"No! not a moment. Is there any hope in appealing to the lawyer whom Mr.
Linley has employed? Let me go back with you to London. I will persuade
him to exert his influence--I will go down on my knees to him--I will
never leave him till I have won him over to my side--I will take Kitty
with me; he shall see us both, and pity us, and help us!"

"Hopeless. Quite hopeless, Mrs. Linley."

"Oh, don't say that!"

"My dear lady, my poor dear lady, I must say it. The man you are talking
of is the last man in the world to be influenced as you suppose. He is
notoriously a lawyer, and nothing but a lawyer. If you tried to move him
to pity you, he would say, 'Madam, I am doing my duty to my client'; and
he would ring his bell and have you shown out. Yes! even if he saw you
crushed and crying at his feet."

Mrs. Presty interfered for the first time.

"In your place, Catherine," she said, "I would put my foot down on that
man and crush _him_. Consent to the Divorce, and you may do it."

Mrs. Linley lay prostrate in her chair. The excitement which had
sustained her thus far seemed to have sunk with the sinking of her last
hope. Pale, exhausted, yielding to hard necessit