who did not. And having come to that, I
think we may give a very good guess who did."

And then they both sat silent for some three or four minutes. Mr.
Dockwrath was quite at his ease, rubbing his chin with his hand,
playing with a paper-knife which he had taken from the study
table, and waiting till it should please Mr. Mason to renew the
conversation. Mr. Mason was not at his ease, though all idea of
affecting any reserve before the attorney had left him. He was
thinking how best he might confound and destroy the woman who had
robbed him for so many years; who had defied him, got the better of
him, and put him to terrible cost; who had vexed his spirit through
his whole life, deprived him of content, and had been to him as a
thorn ever present in a festering sore. He had always believed that
she had defrauded him, but this belief had been qualified by the
unbelief of others. It might have been, he had half thought, that the
old man had signed the codicil in his dotage, having been cheated and
bullied into it by the woman. There had been no day in her life on
which he would not have ruined her, had it been in his power to do
so. But now--now, new and grander ideas were breaking in upon his
mind. Could it be possible that he might live to see her, not merely
deprived of her ill-gained money, but standing in the dock as a felon
to receive sentence for her terrible misdeeds? If that might be so,
would he not receive great compensation for all that he had suffered?
Would it not be sweet to his sense of justice that both of them
should thus at last have their own? He did not even yet understand
all that Mr. Dockwrath suspected. He did not fully perceive why the
woman was supposed to have chosen as the date of her forgery, the
date of that other genuine deed. But he did understand, he did
perceive--at least so he thought,--that new and perhaps conclusive
evidence of her villainy was at last within his reach.

"And what shall we do now, Mr. Dockwrath?" he said at last.

"Well; am I to understand that you do me the honour of asking my
advice upon that question as being your lawyer?"

This question immediately brought Mr. Mason back to business that he
did understand. "A man in my position cannot very well change his
legal advisers at a moment's notice. You must be very well aware of
that, Mr. Dockwrath. Messrs. Round and Crook--"

"Messrs. Round and Crook, sir, have neglected your business in a most
shameful manner. Let