He had an idle hour before his appointment with Robert Grantham, and instinctively he had turned his steps in the direction of Mr. Fox-Cordery's house. As he walked on the opposite side of the street he saw a miserably-clad woman, whose face, equally with her dress, was a melancholy index to her woeful state, standing at the door, exchanging words with a servant who had responded to her knock. Crossing the road, he heard something of what was passing between them, and learned that Mr. Fox-Cordery was in the country. Closer contact with the woman disclosed more plainly to him that she was destitute and in sore trouble, and he was particularly struck at the half-defiant and wholly reckless tone in which she spoke. The door was shut upon her, and she was left standing in the street. Then he observed that she directed a threatening and despairing look at the house; and, as she was walking slowly away, he went up and asked her if he could be of any assistance to her, and whether she would tell him what she wanted with Mr. Fox-Cordery. It was Martha he accosted, but she would have nothing to say to him. Bidding him sullenly to mind his own business, she quickened her steps to a run and disappeared. He reproached himself afterward for not hastening after her, and tempting her with a bribe; for he felt that the woman had some bitter grievance against Mr. Fox-Cordery, and that she could have been of assistance in bringing him to bay. But he shrugged his shoulders, muttering "What is, is; what will be, will be," and followed in the direction she had taken, without, however, seeing her again. CHAPTER XIV. Do you remember Billy's last prayer? At ten o'clock that night Rathbeal and Robert Grantham were at Charing Cross Station, as he had engaged they should be. He had no difficulty in wooing Grantham to the neighborhood, in which they had taken many a stroll on leisure nights. He had given his friend an unfaithful version of his interview with the lawyers, saying there was a difficulty in obtaining the information he required, and that he was to call upon them again to-morrow. "There is a small sum of money attaching to the business," he said, "but we must wait for the precise particulars. It is likely you will have to put in an appearance." "I will do whatever you advise," said Grantham, "but assist in keeping me out of it till the last moment."