Vaughan looked at the speaker, a decent, clean-shaven person in a black high-collared coat, and a limp white neck-cloth. The man’s face seemed familiar to him, and instead of answering the question, Vaughan asked if he knew him. “You’ve seen me in the Lobby, sir,” the other answered, fidgeting in his humility. “I’m Sir Charles Wetherell’s clerk, sir.” “Ah! To be sure!” Vaughan replied. “I thought I knew your face. Sir Charles opens the Assizes to-morrow, I understand?” “Yes, sir, if they will let him. Do you think that there is much danger, sir?” “Danger?” Vaughan answered with a smile. “No serious danger.” “The Government did not wish him to go, sir,” the other rejoined with an air of mystery. “Oh, I don’t believe that,” Vaughan said. “Well, the Corporation didn’t, for certain, sir,” the man persisted in a low voice. “They wanted him to postpone the Assizes. But he doesn’t know what fear is, sir. And now the Government’s ordered troops to Bristol, and I’m afraid that’ll make ’em worse. They’re so set against him for saying that Bristol was no longer for the Bill. And they’re a desperate rough lot, sir, down by the Docks!” “So I’ve heard,” Vaughan said. “But you may be sure that the authorities will see that Sir Charles is well guarded!” The clerk said nothing to that, although it was clear that he was far from convinced, or easy. And Vaughan returned to his thoughts. But by and by it chanced that as he raised his eyes he met those of a girl who was passing his table on her way from the room; and he remembered with a sharp pang how Mary had passed his table and looked at him, and blushed; and how his heart had jumped at the sight. Why, there was the very waiting-maid who had gone out with her! And there, where the April sun had shone on her through the window, she had sat! And there, three places only from his present seat, he had sat himself. Three seats only—and yet how changed was all! The unmanly tears rose very near to his eyes as he thought of it. He sat so long brooding over this, in that mood in which a man recks little of time, or of what befalls him, that the guard had to summon him. And even then, as he donned his coats, with the “boots” fussing about him, and the coachman grumbling at the delay, his memory was busy with that morning. There, in the porch, he had stood and heard the young waterman praise her looks! And there Cooke had stood and denounced the Reform placard! And there—— “Let go!” growled the coachman, losing patience a last. “The gentleman’s not coming!” “I’m coming,” he answered curtly. And crossing the pavement in two strides, he swung himself up hand over hand, as the stableman released the horses. The coach started as his foot left the box of the wheel. And something else started—furiously.