"Certain. The bill was renewed on the 30th of April; here, in this very room. Mr. North received the letter on the 1st of May." "It was so. By the evening post." "So that, if the transaction got wind through that renewing, the writer did not lose much time about it." "Well now, Mr. Dale, in what way could that transaction have got wind, and who heard of it?" "I never spoke of it to a human being," impetuously cried the lawyer. And Richard North again felt sure that he spoke the truth. "The transaction, from the beginning, was known only to us three men: Edmund North, the surgeon, and myself. I don't believe either of them mentioned it at all. I know I did not. It's just possible Edmund North might have told his stepbrother Sidney how he got the money--the young scamp. I beg your pardon, Mr. Richard; I forgot he was your brother also." "It would be to Sidney's interest to keep it quiet," remarked Richard. "Our men at the works have a report amongst them--I know not where picked up, and I don't think they know either--that the writer was your clerk, Wilks." "Nonsense!" contemptuously rejoined the lawyer. "I've heard the report also. Why should Wilks trouble his head about it? Don't believe anything so foolish." "I don't believe it," returned Richard North. "Wilks could have no motive whatever for it, as far as I can see. But I think that he may have become cognizant of the affair, and talked of it abroad." "Not one of my clerks knew anything about it," protested Mr. Dale. "I've three of 'em: Wilks and two others. You don't suppose, sir, I take them into my confidence in all things." "But, is it quite impossible that any one of them--say Wilks--could have found it out surreptitiously?" urged Richard. "Wilks has nothing surreptitious about him," said the lawyer. "He is too shallow for it. A thoroughly useful clerk, but a man without guile." "I did not mean to apply the word to him personally. I'll change it if you like. Could Wilks, or either of the other two, have accidentally learnt this, without your knowledge? Was there a possibility of it? Come, Mr. Dale; be open with me. Even if it were so, no blame would attach to you." "It is just this," answered Mr. Dale: "I don't see how it was possible for any one of them to have learnt it; and yet at the same time, I see no other way in which it could have transpired. That's the candid truth. I lay awake one night for half-an-hour, turning the puzzle over in my mind. Alexander says he never opened his lips about it; I know I did not; and poor Edmund North went into his fatal passion thinking Alexander wrote the letter, because he said Alexander alone knew of it; a pretty sure proof he had not talked about it himself." "Which brings us back to your clerks," remarked Richard North. "They might have overheard a few chance words when the bill was renewed."