While he spoke to Mrs. Harwood in the hall, whither she had been wheeled out to see him, Meredith came from his room and joined her. He had not escaped so well as she the excitement of the previous night, and it was with unfeigned astonishment that he contemplated this old lady, fresh and smiling, her pretty color unimpaired, her eyes as bright as usual. She was over sixty; she had just been baffled in an object which had been the chief inspiration of her life for years, disappointed, exposed to universal censure, perhaps to punishment, but her wonderful force of nature was not abated; the extraordinary crisis which had passed over her, breaking the bonds of her ailment, delivering her from her weakness, had left no signs of exhaustion upon her. She looked like a woman who had never known what trouble or anxiety was as she sat there smiling, assuring the policeman that she could fully explain everything, and would not fail to do so in the proper quarter. She turned to Meredith as he appeared, and held out her hand to him. “Good-morning, my dear Charley; I hope you are not the worse for last night’s agitation. You see our friend here has come to summon me to make explanations about my poor dear upstairs. You will appear for me and settle everything, won’t you? You see this gentleman is a barrister,” she explained, smiling to the man who stood looking on. “Of course I will,” Meredith said. Upon this the policeman took courage, and with a scrape made his _amende honorable_. “I ought to beg your pardon, sir, and yours too, lady, for all the trouble last night. I had every confidence in Jim Harrison, the man that said he could identify the culprit--that is the fellow as nearly killed you, sir--and rumors have been getting up all over the place as it was the young gentleman here as had been a bit wild, and hated you like poison.” “Dolff never hated me like poison, did he?” said Meredith, elevating his eyebrows and appealing to Mrs. Harwood. “Never! you have always been one of his best friends.” “Well,” said the officer, who was not too confident either in this assurance or in the conclusion he had been obliged to come to, “there was a parcel of tales about. You can never tell how them tales gets up. However, it’s all been a mistake: for when Jim sees your young gentleman he says in a moment, ‘Nothing of the sort--that’s not ‘m.’ So it all falls to the ground, as you’ll see, sir, being used to these questions, as the lady says--for want of evidence.” “Exactly,” said Meredith, “and you’ll do me the justice to say, officer, that I told you it would from the first. It’s worth while occasionally taking a man’s advice that knows something about it, you perceive, instead of your Mr. Jim, who evidently knows nothing but what he thinks he saw or didn’t see.” “That’s it, sir, I suppose,” said the policeman, “and if he did see it, or if he didn’t I couldn’t tell, not if it was as much as my place was worth.”