It would be hard to say how the story of the tailor leaked out, and became at last public and notorious. It had been agreed among all the lawyers that it should be kept secret,--but it may perhaps have been from some one attached to them that it was first told abroad. No doubt all Norton and Flick knew it, and all Goffe and Goffe. Mr. Mainsail and his clerk, Mr. Hardy and his clerk, Serjeant Bluestone and his clerk, all knew it; but they had all promised secrecy. The clerk of the Solicitor-General was of course beyond suspicion. The two Miss Bluestones had known the story, but they had solemnly undertaken to be silent as the grave. Mrs. Bluestone was a lady with most intimately confidential friends,--but she was sworn to secrecy. It might have come from Sarah, the lady's-maid, whom the Countess had unfortunately attached to her daughter when the first gleam of prosperity had come upon them. Among the last who heard the story of the tailor,--the last of any who professed the slightest interest in the events of the Lovel family,--were the Lovels of Yoxham. The Earl had told them nothing. In answer to his aunt's letters, and then in answer to a very urgent appeal from his uncle, the young nobleman had sent only the most curt and most ambiguous replies. When there was really something to tell he would tell everything, but at present he could only say that he hoped that everything would be well. That had been the extent of the information given by the Earl to his relations, and the rector had waxed wrathful. Nor was his wrath lessened, or the sorrow of the two aunts mitigated, when the truth reached them by the mouth of that very Lady Fitzwarren who had been made to walk out of the room after--Anna Murray, as Lady Fitzwarren persisted in calling the "young person" after she had heard the story of the tailor. She told the story at Yoxham parsonage to the two aunts, and brought with her a printed paragraph from a newspaper to prove the truth of it. As it is necessary that we should now hurry into the court to hear what the Solicitor-General had to say about the case, we cannot stop to sympathize with the grief of the Lovels at Yoxham. We may, however, pause for a moment to tell the burden of the poor rector's song for that evening. "I knew how it would be from the beginning. I told you so. I was sure of it. But nobody would believe me."