Further up the narrow stairs she came face-to-face with two gentlemen, who paused--she felt it--and looked back at her as she knocked and rang at the door of “Mr. Laurence Wynne.” Truly, such an elegant-looking young lady was not to be met about the old Temple every day; and never had such an apparition been seen on Mr. Wynne’s landing. The outer room was occupied by two clerks, who stared at the visitor in unqualified amazement. Here was something spicy in the shape of a client! Very, very different to the usual run. “A breach of promise,” was their immediate and mutual idea. Something more to the purpose than cranky old fogies fighting about rights of way, or an involved legacy case. This was a pretty girl, and a swell. So much they noted with their sharp, semi-judicial eyes, as she stood timidly in the doorway and raised her veil. One of them instantly bounded off his seat, and asked what he could do for her? “Could she see Mr. Wynne?” she faltered, as her eyes roved round the outer office, with its great double desk piled with documents, its rows of law books ranged round the room on staggering, rickety shelves, its threadbare carpet, its rusty fender, its grimy windows, and last, not least, two bottles of stout, and a pewter mug. Still, these two youths might be Laurence’s clerks. Could it be possible? Could it be possible that these immense piles of papers concerned Laurence? If so, he was getting on--really getting on at last. But what a horrible musty place! The very air smelt of dust and leather and law books. “Mr. Wynne, miss, did you say? Very sorry, but Mr. Wynne is in court,” said the clerk, briskly. “When will he be back?” she inquired, advancing and standing in the front of another door, evidently Mr. Wynne’s own sanctum. “Afraid I cannot say, miss; he is to speak in the case of Fuller _v._ Potts--breach of contract. Any business, any message----” But the words died upon his lips--this uncommonly cool young party had actually walked into Mr. Wynne’s own sitting-room. “It’s all right,” she remarked carelessly, divining his horror. “Mr. Wynne knows me.” And she went and sat down in his armchair, in front of a table piled with documents, all more or less neatly tied up and docketed. There were numbers of letters under little weights. There was a law book, a couple of open notes, and all the apparatus of a busy legal man. She shrugged her shoulders and looked round the room; it was dingy and shabby (furniture taken at a valuation from the last tenant); the carpet between the door and the fireplace was worn threadbare, as if it were a pathway--which it was.