"The matter is far too complicated to be disposed of so lightly, I fear," he remarked, shaking his head. "Let me place the details of the thing before you and as a business man you can then judge for yourself." He had at least no fault to find with the grave attention they paid him, indeed, the entirely unemotional attitude of the younger man was to the lawyer's mind the most alarming symptom he had noted. Still he could not allow to himself that his task presented more than surmountable difficulties, for Mr. Saunderson had no real knowledge of the forces at work against him, of the silent, desperate woman who had given her life for her faith, who had once been beautiful, and whose worn body slept in the little dull cemetery at Whitmansworth. "I believe you are acquainted with the great premises known as Princes Buildings," began Mr. Saunderson, "that simplifies my task. For the whole affair is so amazingly managed that I can offer you no precedent with which to compare it. There are seven floors in that building, and on each floor the affairs of the six great concerns in which Mr. Masters was interested, are conducted. Such an arrangement was only carried out at enormous expense and trouble. I may tell you, however, that the condition of Mr. Masters' interesting himself in either of the companies, was their domicile beneath this one roof. Now in five of these big concerns he occupied merely the place of a director, with no more official power than any other director might have. Yet in every case, I think I may say, no decision of any importance would have been taken by the company in opposition to his advice, and he was the financial backbone of each. On the two top floors of these great premises we have a rather different state of things. For here are the offices of the three smaller companies which were directly under the control of Mr. Masters, and which are the original source of his fortune. I allude to the Steel Axle Company, the Stormly Mine and the Stormly Foundry Companies. These affairs he continued to keep under his own eye, never relaxing his attention, or the excellent system he had established, under which the whole great affair worked with such marvellous smoothness and success. I beg your pardon, did you say anything?" Christopher shook his head. Mr. Saunderson resumed.