While Edgar sat thus waiting, excitement gradually gaming upon him, he saw with some surprise that the man to whom he had given so many different descriptions, was drawing back and pushing Lord Newmarch towards him; and seeing this, he got up, with a half-shrinking from his fate, half-eagerness to hear it. “All right,” said the unknown, “your turn first. The great man must give us all audience in turn;” and with a little nod he went to the other end of the room and took up a newspaper, of which he probably made as little use as Edgar had been doing of his book. “Droll fellow!” said Newmarch, “how d’ye do, eh, Earnshaw? I have been in town this month past, but you have never looked me up.” “I feared to bore you,” said Edgar, hastily. “It is my business never to be bored,” said Lord Newmarch, with a certain solemnity, which was natural to him. “Where have you been--in the country? what here all this time! I wish I had known; I seldom come here, except for the library, which is wonderfully good, as perhaps you know. That was Cheeseman that was arguing with me--Cheeseman, you know, one of those practical people--and insists upon his own way.” “I wonder,” said Edgar, uneasily, “whether you have ever thought again of a small matter I went to you about?” “What, the messengership?” said Lord Newmarch, “what do you take me for--eh, Earnshaw? Of course I have thought of it; there is never a week that I do not hope something may happen to old Runtherout; I don’t mean anything fatal of course; but there he sticks from month to month, and probably so he will from year to year.” Edgar felt his countenance falling, falling. He felt, or thought he felt, his jaw drop. He felt his heart go down, down, like a stone. He put a miserable smile upon his miserable face. “Then I suppose there is no chance for me,” he said. “Oh yes, my dear fellow, certainly there is a chance--as much chance as there ever was,” said Lord Newmarch, cheerfully, “these things, of course, cannot be altered all at once, but as soon as old Runtherout gives up, which cannot be long--I do not mind for my part what anyone says, I shall put you in. If you only knew what it would have been to me to have you in Berlin now! You speak German quite fluently, don’t you? Good heavens, what a loss to me!”