Hardly were the last words out of Pod's mouth, when the inner door was opened, and Matthew Kelvin walked silently into the room. In silence he sat down at his desk, after one sharp glance at Pod and another at the fire, and set to work at once at the task immediately before him. This task was the opening of the pile of post letters which had been placed ready to his hand by Pod. A brief glance at the contents of each was generally sufficient. In very few cases did he trouble himself to read a letter entirely through. Three or four of the more important documents were put aside to be attended to specially by himself; the rest of them had a corner turned up on which Pod pencilled down in shorthand Mr. Kelvin's instructions for the guidance of Mr. Bray, his chief clerk. It was his cleverness at shorthand that had gained Pod his present situation. "That will do," said Mr. Kelvin, after a few minutes of this sharp work. "Give those papers to Mr. Bray, and tell him not to come in till I ring." Something out of the ordinary way was evidently the matter with Mr. Kelvin this morning. After making one or two futile attempts to read over for the second time, and more carefully than before, the letters left behind by Pod, he gave up the attempt as a bad job. "I don't feel as if I could settle down to anything this morning," he said. "And no wonder. How well the secret has been kept! Even I had not the remotest suspicion of such a thing. What a strange example of the irony of events that I, of all men in the world, should have to break these tidings to Eleanor! What will my proud beauty say when I tell her? I could never have devised so exquisite a revenge. And yet it is not my hand that will drag her down. It is the hand of Jacob Lloyd that smites her from out his grave." He fell into a reverie which lasted till he was disturbed by a knock at the door. "Come in," he said mechanically, and the head of Pod was thrust into the room. "A lady to see you, sir. Says her name is Miss Deane." "Olive Deane!" said Mr. Kelvin, in surprise. "Show her in." Matthew Kelvin at this time was thirty-five years old. He was a handsome, large-nosed man, with full grey eyes and rather prominent teeth. He was already partially bald; but what hair he had left was carefully trimmed and parted down the middle, while his bushy dark-brown whiskers showed no traces of age. He always dressed well, and was very particular as to his boots and gloves and the cut of his trousers. He had studied the art of dress as carefully as he had studied many other things, and the result was a success.