‘We have hardly a friend who can help us. What does Mr. Sampson know of criminal law? What does my husband know as to what he ought to do to protect himself in his present position? We are like children lost in a dark wood--a wood where there are beasts of prey that may devour us.’ ‘Mr. Sampson seems very clever, ma’am. Depend upon it, he’ll know what to do. Lor’, what a ugly place this London is!’ exclaimed Mary, looking with astonished eyes at the architectural beauties of the Gray’s Inn Road, ‘everything so dark and smoky. Beechampton is ever so much grander.’ Here the cab turned into the Euston Road, and the palatial front of the Midland Hotel revealed itself in a burst of splendour to Mary’s astonished eyes. ‘My!’ she exclaimed, ‘it must be Buckingham Palace, surely!’ Her astonishment became stupefaction when the cab drove under the Italian-Gothic portico, and a liveried page sprang forward to open the door, and relieve the bewildered Abigail of her mistress’s travelling bag. Her surprise and admiration went on increasing, like a geometrical progression, commencing above unity, as she followed her mistress across the pillared hall and up the marble staircase, to a corridor, whose remote perspective ended far away in a twinkling speck of gaslight. ‘Gracious, what a place!’ she cried. ‘If all the hotels in London are like this, what must the Queen’s palace be?’ The polite German attendant opened the door of a sitting-room, where a bright fire burned as if to welcome expected guests. He had softly murmured the words ‘sitting-room’ into Laura’s ear as she crossed the hall, and she bowed gently in assent. No more was needed. He felt that she was the right sort of customer for the Grand Midland. ‘Die pettroom is vithin,’ he said, indicating a door of communication. ‘Dere is also tressing-room. Dere vill pe a room vanted for die mait, matam, I subbose. I vill sent die champermait. Matam vill vish to tine?’ ‘No, thanks. You can bring some tea,’ answered Laura, sinking wearily into a chair. She kept her veil down to hide her tear-stained cheeks. ‘If a gentleman called Sampson should inquire for me in the course of the evening, please send him here.’ ‘Yes, matame. Vat name?’ ‘What man? Oh, you mean my own name. Treverton, Mrs. Treverton.’ She shuddered at the thought that in a few days the name might be notorious. Mary ordered a dish of cutlets to be sent up with the tea, and presently she and the chambermaid were arranging Mrs. Treverton’s bedroom, opening the portmanteau, setting out the ivory brushes and silver-topped bottles from the travelling bag, and giving a look of comfort and homeliness to the strange apartment. Fires were lighted in the bedroom and dressing-room, and there was that all-pervading air of luxury, which, to the traveller of limited means, suggests the idea that, for the time being, he is living at the rate of ten thousand a year.