“Yes, that was my first feeling; but I am now confessing that after all, in some mysterious way, she has contrived to shake these preconceived ideas about her, now that from this distance I can view the room and what transpired in it. I dare not say by what means she has contrived to produce this effect; indeed, it is so subtle that I can hardly say what it amounts to, because if I begin to recall her words she seems almost to have admitted her guilt. Yet of one thing I am convinced--she presented no evidence of her depravity.” “One can easily concede the probability of that.” “Yes, but had it been as complete as you insist, I must have seen it.” “Pardon me, but I am afraid it does not follow. What is easier than to hide its traces from the eyes of inexperience?” “Have I not the talisman in my pocket which transcends experience?” “Talisman be damned,” said Mr. Whitcomb, with a jovial brutality. Before his companion could frame an answer to a scorn so unconciliatory, the hansom stopped before the offices of Messrs. Whitcomb and Whitcomb. They alighted together. XXII LIFE OR DEATH The final consultation of Northcote and his client took place in the open street in the heavily raining December afternoon, with their backs against Mr. Whitcomb’s brass plate. The spot selected for their last utterances on this momentous affair was incongruous indeed, but each had grown so impatient of the other, that if their last words were spoken here, the clash of their mental states was the less likely to invite disaster than in a more formal council-chamber of four walls. The robust common sense of the solicitor had never shown itself to be more incisive than now as he stood with his back to his own door, under a dripping umbrella, his hat pushed to the back of his head, and his trousers turned up beyond his ankles. His twenty years of immensely successful practice, his exact knowledge of human nature, his ruthless worldliness, his reverence for the hard fact, stood forth here in the oddest contrast with the somewhat “special” and rarefied quality of this youthful advocate whom he had seen fit to entrust with so important a case. “It’s a pity, it’s a pity,” he brought himself to say at last, his veneer falling off a little under the stress of his chagrin, and revealing a glimpse of the baffled human animal beneath. “It is a serious mistake to have made; but we have got to stand to it. You are not the man for this class of work, to speak bluntly. You are either too deep or you are not deep enough. But as I say, we have got to stand to it now. My last words will be to urge you to put as good a face upon it as you can.” “In other words,” said Northcote, stiffening, “you will look to me to do my best.”