Chandos assented, and, the hour being fixed at half-past seven, took his leave, and returned to his inn in the city. The chamber assigned to him was large and gloomy: the wainscoted walls were covered, besides the paint, with the smoke and dust of half a century; the bed in the far corner rose tall and ghastly, in curtains of brown moreen; and the hangings at the windows had acquired a hue which can only be given by long immersion in a London atmosphere. There was a feeling of foul misery about the whole, which fell depressing upon the spirit of Chandos Winslow. It was much more like poverty and wretchedness than the gardener's cottage at Northferry. He thought of Rose Tracy; he recalled her father's cold and repulsive manner; he inquired of his own heart if it were possible to ask her to share poverty with him; to expose her to all the ills of penury, the daily cares and grinding inconveniences of narrow means, and to bind down her free spirit, unaccustomed to a want unsatisfied, a wish unfulfilled, in the hard chain of straitened circumstances. Chandos Winslow would not answer the question; but his heart sunk as he propounded it to himself: and he went to bed weary of the working-day world and the battle of anxious thought. CHAPTER XXXVIII. The next was a busy day with Chandos Winslow. His first occupation was to sell out a sum sufficient to pay the costs of the late trial, as far as he was able to calculate them, from the rough data which he had received. He added thereunto, two hundred and fifty pounds, for his current expenses; and having arranged that affair, and placed the money in his banker's hands, he proceeded to seek the friend who had so ably pleaded his cause. From his house, he was sent to his chambers; from his chambers, to a court of law, where he found him, wigged and gowned, in the midst of a long and laborious argument, which seemed likely never to come to an end. After enduring full two hours, however, the speech was concluded; and Chandos, sending his card, obtained a moment's interview with his friend. Sir---- shook him warmly by the hand, saying rapidly, "Come to me at nine to-night, Winslow: I cannot stay with you now; for I must hear what the gentlemen opposite have to say. Don't eat much dinner; for I shall eat nothing till then." "At your own house, or at your chambers?" asked Chandos. "At chambers, at chambers," said the barrister, turning to go back into the court. "I shall not get home till two. Our lives are not easy ones."