One morning during this time, Karl was sitting alone in his room, when Hewitt came to him to say Smith the agent was asking to see him. Karl did not like Smith the agent: he doubted, dreaded, and did not comprehend him. "Will you see him, sir?" asked Hewitt, in a low tone, perceiving the lines on his master's brow. "I suppose I must see him, Hewitt," was the reply--and the confidential, faithful servant well understood the force of the must. "Show him in." "Beg pardon for disturbing you so early, Sir Karl," said the agent, as Hewitt brought him in and placed a chair. "There's one of your small tenants dropping into a mess, I fancy. He has got the brokers in for taxes, or something of that kind. I thought I'd better let you know at once." Hewitt shut the door, and Karl pushed away the old letters he had been sorting. Sir Joseph's papers and effects had never been examined yet; but Karl was settling to the work now. That Mr. Smith had spoken in an unusually loud and careless tone, he noticed: and therefore judged that this was but the ostensible plea for his calling, given lest any ears should be about. "Which of my tenants is it, Mr. Smith!" he quietly asked. Mr. Smith looked round to be sure that the door was closed, and then asked Sir Karl if he'd mind having the window shut; he felt a bit of a draught. And he shut the glass doors himself with his one hand, before Karl could assent to the proposal, or rise to do it himself. "It is Seaford the miller," he answered. "And"--dropping his voice to the lowest and most cautious tone--"it is a fact that he has the brokers in for some arrears of Queen's rates. But the man has satisfied me that it is but a temporary embarrassment; and I think, Sir Karl, your rent is in no danger. Still it was right that you should know of it; and it has served, just in the nick of time, to account for my object in coming." "What is the real object?" inquired Karl, in a voice as cautious as the other voice. Mr. Smith took a newspaper out of the pocket of his light summer coat; borrowed his disabled hand from the sling to help unfold it, and then, pointed to a small paragraph. It ran as follows:-- "Curious rumours are afloat connected with a recorded attempt at escape from Portland Island, in which the unfortunate malefactor met his death. A mysterious whisper has arisen, we know not how or whence, that the death was but a fiction, and that the man is at large." "What paper is it?" cried Karl, trying to force some colour into his white lips. "Only one in which all kinds of stories are got up," rejoined Mr. Smith, showing the title of a sensational weekly paper. "The paragraph may have resulted from nothing but the imagination of some penny-a-liner, Sir Karl, at fault for real matter." "I don't like it," observed Karl, after a pause. "Assume that it may be as you suggest, and nothing more, this very announcement will be the means of drawing people's thoughts towards it."