was reading aloud, let her hand fall with
the letter on her lap, and with a palpitating heart looked at her father, who
looked again, in silence that lasted for two or three minutes. A certain terror
was upon them both, though the thoughts that laid that weight on the tongue of
each were different.
    It was Mr Lyon who spoke first.
    »This, then, is what the man named Christian referred to. I distrusted him,
yet it seems he spoke truly.«
    »But,« said Esther, whose imagination ran necessarily to those conditions of
wealth which she could best appreciate, »do they mean that the Transomes would
be turned out of Transome Court, and that I should go and live there? It seems
quite an impossible thing.«
    »Nay, child, I know not. I am ignorant in these things, and the thought of
worldly grandeur for you hath more of terror than of gladness for me.
Nevertheless we must duly weigh all things, not considering aught that befalls
us as a bare event, but rather as an occasion for faithful stewardship. Let us
go to my study and consider this writing further.«
    How this announcement, which to Esther seemed as unprepared as if it had
fallen from the skies, came to be made to her by solicitors other than Batt
& Cowley, the old lawyers of the Bycliffes, was by a sequence as natural,
that is to say, as legally-natural, as any in the world. The secret worker of
the apparent wonder was Mr Johnson, who, on the very day when he wrote to give
his patron, Mr Jermyn, the serious warning that a bill was likely to be filed in
Chancery against him, had carried forward with added zeal the business already
commenced, of arranging with another firm his share in the profits likely to
result from the prosecution of Esther Bycliffe's claim.
    Jermyn's star was certainly going down, and Johnson did not feel an
unmitigated grief. Beyond some troublesome declarations as to his actual share
in transactions in which his name had been used, Johnson saw nothing formidable
in prospect for himself. He was not going to be ruined, though Jermyn probably
was: he was not a highflyer, but a mere climbing-bird, who could hold on and get
his livelihood just as well if his wings were clipped a little. And, in the
meantime, here was something to be gained in this Bycliffe business, which, it
was not unpleasant to think, was a nut that Jermyn had intended to keep for his
own particular cracking, and