Mr Judex threw himself back in his chair with galvanic quickness and a beaming face. “Nothing could be happier,” he said delightedly. “It lies in your power to exonerate me from a very gross and cruel accusation.” “So far as my conscious probity is concerned,” said Gilead, “I am at your service.” The old man bent forward again, and patted him three times on the knee. “Meet me,” he said, “at nine o’clock--this evening--outside number forty-one--Belgrave Crescent.” For one moment Gilead hesitated. The oddity of the request, the lateness of the hour named, the suggestion of something sinister and uncanny connected with that abysmal crypt so darkly alluded to, impressed him with a sense of some unseemliness in prospect which it would be wiser in him to leave unexplored. What could possibly bear upon the refutation of a calumny in those obscure depths? An aspersed bin (he reflected, with concern, that he had no palate for “bouquets”)? A deceased butler? An immured traducer, like him in the terrific Mr Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado!”? Nothing, he hoped, to do with buried corpses or concealed “swag.” But in the end the spirit of the Romantic Quest decided him. “I will be punctual to the appointment,” he said, and rose from his chair. He returned to the Bureau to find Miss Halifax already installed in his private office. She struck him as looking a supremely attractive amanuensis, and he congratulated himself on the good fortune which had attended his first personal venture. If she should prove as sympathetic to his aims as she was grateful to his vision, he would come to hold, he told himself, having the perfect feminine on one side of him and the perfect male on the other, the most admirable balance between reason and emotion. In fact he informed her so, quite frankly and quietly, and she blushed as she made a very pretty and modest acknowledgment of his kindness, and of her determination to win his good opinion. “Mr Winsom Wyllie is first down among my mental notes,” he told her. “I shall not forget him.” He went, indeed, that very afternoon to Somerset House in order to ascertain if the Will had as yet been proved, but was unsuccessful in his search. “Never mind,” he thought. “Such a rapacious scoundrel will not be long in realizing his ill-gotten gains, and in a very short time, I fancy, we shall be possessed of a clue.” He was as little inclined to effusive confidences as to senseless reticence; but for some reason he told Miss Halifax about his forthcoming venture. To his surprise she received his story with some signs of emotion. “I don’t think it sounds nice,” she said. “I wish you would let one of the others go instead.” He looked at her kindly. “What do you doubt?” he answered; “my proficiency, or my discretion, or my savoir-faire?” “None of these,” she said--“or your courage or generosity. Forgive me and my presumption in offering advice so soon.”