This consummation seems, however, at present rather remote. If we were of a misanthropic turn, and familiar with any good-humoured demon, lame or otherwise, we should trouble him to take us to and fro between the home and haunts of some well-seeming family, and the gloomy chambers where Astræa holds her revels. We should be present one day at the dinner or the ball, and the next day we should go among crumbling papers and musty parchments. We should follow the unconscious prey to the levee or drawing-room, and then we should repair to the dark den, where the spoiler was quietly and assiduously preparing the pit-fall. Often when we look up to the lofty buildings inhabited especially by the servants of Themis, we are led to think of the devices which may there be silently undermining the stability of some well-to-do house, now standing fair and seemly in the eyes of the world. Far away back, in some ancient record, the lynx-eyed practitioner has lighted upon the trail: step by step he advances, fortifying himself at every pause, until the prize is full in view, and the filing of a bill or the service of a writ informs the unsuspecting victim that his all is at stake; destroying in one moment the whole security of his life, and entangling him in a maze of litigation, to endure possibly for years, and too probably to leave him, even if successful, an impoverished and broken-hearted man. In these days of iron and steam, there is nothing romantic but the law. And we are not thinking of the mere lovers of chicane, who occasionally disgrace the profession, but of what may happen in the career of the most honourable of its votaries. It was thus that the downfall of Trevethlan was prepared in one office, and that its restoration was now being achieved in another. Little had Randolph dreamed of the plot that was devising against him, and in which the lawyers were but unwitting agents: little did Esther imagine the counter-stroke which was now impending, and to which double weight was to be given by the conduct of her late protégé. Michael Sinson, baffled in his new attempt against Randolph, had returned sulkily to London. Among the first intelligence which met his eyes in the daily journals was the suicide of his miserable slave. He gnashed his teeth as he read it, and perceived that Rereworth had been in communication with the deceased. Had Everope been a double traitor? Sinson could not free himself from the idea. The ground seemed to be shaking under his feet. After hours of irritating uncertainty, he sought an interview with Mr. Truby, in hope of discovering whether anything had transpired. But he met a very cold reception, and obtained no solution of his anxiety. The lawyer, however, demanded his address, and he, after giving it, went immediately and moved to other quarters.