 Mr. Tulkinghorn.«
    Sir Leicester's gallantry concedes the point; though he still feels that to
bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is really - really -
    »I was about to say,« resumes the lawyer, with undisturbed calmness, »that
whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my power to tell you.
I should amend that phrase, however, by saying that he had unquestionably died
of his own act; though whether by his own deliberate intention, or by mischance,
can never certainly be known. The Coroner's jury found that he took the poison
accidentally.«
    »And what kind of man,« my Lady asks, »was this deplorable creature?«
    »Very difficult to say,« returns the lawyer, shaking his head. »He had lived
so wretchedly, and was so neglected, with his gipsy colour, and his wild black
hair and beard, that I should have considered him the commonest of the common.
The surgeon had a notion that he had once been something better, both in
appearance and condition.«
    »What did they call the wretched being?«
    »They called him what he had called himself, but no one knew his name.«
    »Not even any one who had attended on him?«
    »No one had attended on him. He was found dead. In fact, I found him.«
    »Without any clue to anything more?«
    »Without any; there was,« says the lawyer meditatively, »an old portmanteau;
but - No, there were no papers.«
    During the utterance of every word of this short dialogue, Lady Dedlock and
Mr. Tulkinghorn, without any other alteration in their customary deportment,
have looked very steadily at one another - as was natural, perhaps, in the
discussion of so unusual a subject. Sir Leicester has looked at the fire, with
the general expression of the Dedlock on the staircase. The story being told, he
renews his stately protest, saying, that as it is quite clear that no
association in my Lady's mind can possibly be traceable to this poor wretch
(unless he was a begging-letter writer); he trusts to hear no more about a
subject so far removed from my Lady's station.
    »Certainly, a collection of horrors,« says my Lady, gathering up her mantles
and furs; »but they interest one for the moment! Have the kindness, Mr.
Tulkinghorn, to open the door for me.«
    Mr. Tulkinghorn does so with deference
