That first impression was not a good one—no, it was not a good one. Mr. Dunbar was a handsome man—a very handsome man—tall and aristocratic-looking, with a certain haughty pace in his manner that harmonized well with his good looks. But, in spite of all this, the impression which he made upon the mind of Arthur Lovell was not an agreeable one. The young lawyer had heard the story of the forgery vaguely hinted at by those who were familiar with the history of the Dunbar family; and he had heard that the early life of Henry Dunbar had been that of a selfish spendthrift. Perhaps this may have had some influence upon his feelings in this his first meeting with the father of the woman he loved. Henry Dunbar told the story of the murder. The two men were inexpressibly shocked by this story. "But where is Sampson Wilmot?" exclaimed Mr. Balderby. "It was he whom I sent to meet you, knowing that he was the only person in the office who remembered you, or whom you remembered." "Sampson was taken ill upon the way, according to his brother's story," Mr. Dunbar answered. "Joseph left the poor old man somewhere upon the road." "He did not say where?" "No; and, strange to say, I forgot to ask him the question. The poor fellow amused me by old memories of the past on the road between Southampton and this place, and we therefore talked very little of the present." "Sampson must be very ill," exclaimed Mr. Balderby, "or he would certainly have returned to St. Gundolph Lane to tell me what had taken place." Mr. Dunbar smiled. "If he was too ill to go on to Southampton, he would, of course, be too ill to return to London," he said, with supreme indifference. Mr. Balderby, who was a good-hearted man, was distressed at the idea of Sampson Wilmot's desolation; an old man, stricken with sudden illness, and abandoned to strangers. Arthur Lovell was silent: he sat a little way apart from the two others, watching Henry Dunbar. At three o'clock the inquest commenced. The witnesses summoned were the two Irishmen, Patrick Hennessy and Philip Murtock, who had found the body in the stream near St. Cross; Mr. Cricklewood, the surgeon; the verger, who had seen and spoken to the two men, and who had afterwards shown the cathedral to Mr. Dunbar; the landlord of the George, and the waiter who had received the travellers and had taken Mr. Dunbar's orders for the dinner; and Henry Dunbar himself. There were a great many people in the room, for by this time the tidings of the murder had spread far and wide. There were influential people present, amongst others, Sir Arden Westhorpe, one of the county magistrates resident at Winchester. Arthur Lovell, Mr. Balderby, and the Anglo-Indian sat in a little group apart from the rest. The jurymen were ranged upon either side of a long mahogany table. The coroner sat at the top.