"Bridgewater," repeated Mr Hancock, "will you answer me the question I just asked you? Why did you follow me to-day?" "Oh Lord," said Bridgewater, "I wish I had never seen this day! Follow you, Mr James? do you think I followed you for pleasure? Why, the office--God bless my soul! it makes my hair stand on end--no one there but Wolf to take charge, and I have been away hours and hours. It's three o'clock now, and here am I miles and miles away; and I ought to have called at the law courts at 3.20, and there's those bills to file. It seems all like a horrible nightmare, that it does; it seems----" "I don't want to know what it seems. You have left your duty and come away--for what purpose?" Silence. "Ah well!" said Hancock, speaking not in the least angrily, "I see there is a secret of some sort. I regret that a man in whom I have always placed implicit trust should keep from me a secret that concerns me; evidently--no matter, I am not curious. Yes, it is three o'clock; it might be as well for you to return and look after things, though it is too late for the law courts now." This tone and manner completely floored Bridgewater. The fountains of his great deep were broken up, and if Patience Hancock could have seen the damage done to his confidential reservoir, she would have shuddered. "I'll tell you the truth, Mr James. It's not my fault--she put me to the work. I'll tell you the truth. I've been following you and spying upon you, but it was for your own good, she said----" "Who said?" "Miss Patience." "Miss Patience told you to follow me to-day?" "Yes." "But what on earth--how on earth did she know I was--er--coming here?" "She didn't know." "Well, how the _devil_ did she tell you to follow me, then?" "She wanted to know where you were going to." "But," roared Hancock, whose face had been slowly crimsoning, or purpling rather, since the mention of his sister's name, "how the _blazes_ did she know I was going _anywhere_?" "When I saw you going out of the office with Miss Lambert I ran round and told her." "When you saw me going out of the office with Miss Lambert you ran round and told her!" said Hancock, spacing each word and speaking with such a change from fire to ice that his listener shivered. "Oh, this is too good! I pay you a large salary to spy upon me and to run round and tell my sister my doings. Am I mad, or am I dreaming? And what--what--WHAT led you, sir, to leave the office and run round and tell my sister?" "For God's sake, Mr James, don't talk so loud!" said Bridgewater; "the people are turning round to look at us. I didn't leave the office of my own accord; it was Miss Patience, who said to me, she said, 'Bridgewater, I trust you for your master's sake to let me know if you see him with a lady, for,' she said, 'there is a woman who has designs on him.'" "Ah!" "Those were her words. So when I saw you going out with Miss Lambert I ran round and told her." "Ah!"