The lawyer perused it, and said: "You are right, sir. The £50 shall be paid to you immediately; but we must request you to consider that our client is your friend, and acts by our advice, and that it will not be either graceful or delicate to interpret her conduct to her discredit." "My good sir," said Monckton, with one of his cynical sneers, "every time your client pays me £50, put on the receipt that black is white in matters of conjugal morality, and I'll sign the whole acknowledgment." Finding he had such a serpent to deal with, the lawyer cut the dialogue short, and paid the money. However, as Monckton was leaving, he said: "You can write to us when you want any more, and would it be discreet of me to ask where we can address you?" "Why not?" said Monckton. "I have nothing to conceal. However, all I can tell you at present is that I am going to Hull to try and find a couple of rogues." To Hull he went, breathing avarice and vengeance. This dangerous villain was quite master of Bartley's secret, and Hope's. To be sure, when Hope first discovered him in Bartley's office, he was puzzled at the sudden interference of that stranger. He had only seen Hope's back until this, and, moreover, Hope had been shabbily dressed in black cloth hard worn, whereas he was in a new suit of tweed when he exposed Monckton's villainy. But this was explained at the trial, and Monckton instructed his attorney to cross-examine Hope about his own great fraud; but counsel refused to do so, either because he disbelieved his client, or thought such a cross-examination would be stopped, or set the court still more against his client. Monckton raged at this, and, of course, said he had been bought by the other side. But now he was delighted that his enemies' secret had never been inquired into, and that he could fall on them both like a thunder-bolt. He was at Hull next day, and rambled about the old shop, and looked in at the windows. All new faces, and on the door-plate, "Atkinson & Co." Then he went in, and asked for Mr. Bartley. Name not known. "Why, he used to be here. I was in his employ." No; nobody knew Mr. Bartley. Could he see Mr. Atkinson? Certainly. Mr. Atkinson would be there at two o'clock. Monckton, after some preamble, asked whether he had not succeeded in this business to Mr. Robert Bartley. No. He had bought the business from Mrs. Duplex, a widow residing in this town, and he happened to know that her husband had taken it from Whitaker, a merchant at Boston. "Is he alive, sir?" "I believe so, and very well known." Monckton went off to Whitaker, and learned from him that he had bought the business from Bartley, but it was many years ago, and he had never heard of the purchaser since that day.