eshers every day, you lucky fellow.
I have just as much trouble and no refreshers. What a fool a man is,
Tatham, ever to change the Bar for the Bench! Don't you do it, my dear
fellow--take a man's advice who knows."

"At least I shall wait till I am asked," said John.

"Oh, you will be asked sooner or later--but don't do it--take example by
those who have gone before you," said the great functionary, shaking his
learned head.

And the Judge's wife had also a word to say. "Mr. Tatham," she said, as
he took his leave, "I know now what I have to do when I want to secure
Lady Mariamne--I shall ask you."

"Do you often want to secure Lady Mariamne?" said John.

"Oh, it is all very well to look as if you didn't care! She is, perhaps,
a little _passee_, but still a great many people think her charming.
Isn't there a family connection?" Lady Wigsby said, with a curiosity
which she tried not to make too apparent, for she was acquainted with
the ways of the profession, and knew that was the last thing likely to
procure her the information she sought.

"It cannot be called a connection. There was a marriage--which turned
out badly."

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Tatham, if the question was indiscreet! I
hear Lord St. Serf is worse again, and not likely to last long; and
there is some strange story about a lost heir."

"Good-night, Lady Wigsby," John replied.

And he added, "Confound Lord St. Serf," under his breath, as he went
down-stairs.

But it was not Lord St. Serf, poor man, who had done him no harm, whom
John wished to be confounded because at last, after many threatenings,
he was about to be so ill-advised as to die. It was some one very
different. It was the woman who for much more than twenty years had been
the chief object of John Tatham's thoughts.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Things relapsed into quietness for some time after that combination
which seemed to be directed against John's peace of mind. If I said that
it is not unusual for the current of events to run very quietly before
a great crisis, I should not be saying anything original, since the
torrent's calmness ere it dash below has been remarked before now. But
it certainly was so in this instance. John, I need scarcely say, did not
present himself at Lady Mariamne's on the afternoon at five when he was
expected. He wrote a very civil note to say that he was unable to come,
and still less able to give the information her ladyship required; and,
to t