I stood silent for a moment, reluctantly considering a plan which had just flashed into my head. Vincott drew a flint and steel from his pocket, and lighted the candles--for the dusk was filling the room--and drew the curtains close. All at once the dizzy faintness which had come over me in the side-street near the Guildhall returned, and set the room spinning about me. I clutched at a chair to save myself from falling. Vincott snatched up a candle, and looked shrewdly into my face. "When did you dine?" he asked. "At breakfast-time," said I. He opened the door, and rang a bell which stood on a side-table. "Lucy!" he bawled over the bannisters. A great buxom wench with a cheery face answered the summons, and he bade her cook what meats they had with all celerity. "Meantime," said he, "we will while away the interval over a posset of Bristol milk. You have never tasted that, Mr. Buckler? I would that I could say the same. I envy you the pleasure of your first acquaintance with its merit." The "milk," as he termed it, was a strong brewage of Spanish wine, singularly luxurious and palatable. Mr. Vincott held up his glass to the light, and the liquid sparkled like a clear ruby. "'Tis a generous drink," he said. "It gives nimbleness to the body, wealth to the blood, and lightness to the heart. The true Promethean fire!" And he drained the glass, and smacked his lips. "That is a fine strapping wench," said I. "She must be of my height, or thereabouts." The lawyer cocked his head at me. "Ah!" said he drily, "a wonderful thing is Bristol milk." But I was thinking of something totally different. The girl fetched in a stew of beef, steaming hot, and we sat down to it, though indeed I had little inclination for the meal. "Now, Mr. Vincott," said I, "I will pray you, while we are eating, to help me to the history of Julian's calamities." I think that my voice broke somewhat on the word, for he laid his hand gently upon my arm. "I know nothing of it myself beyond what you have told me, and a rumour that came to me in London." The lawyer sat silent for a time, drumming with his fingers on the table. "Your story," I urged, "will save much valuable time when I visit Julian." "I was thinking," he replied, "how much I should tell you. You see, merely the facts are known to me. Of what lies underneath them--I mean the motives and passions which have ordered their sequence--I may have surmised something" (here his eyes twinkled cunningly), "but I have no certitude. That part of the business concerns you, not me. 'Twere best, then, that I show you no more than the plain face of the matter." He pushed away his plate, leaned both arms upon the table, and, with a certain wariness in his manner, told me the following tale: