He had a growing belief that Lake, and perhaps he _only_--except Wylder himself--knew the meaning of all this mysterious marching and counter-marching. Of course, all sorts of theories were floating in his mind; but there was none that would quite fit all the circumstances. The attorney, had he asked himself the question, what was his object in these inquisitions, would have answered--'I am doing what few other men would. I am, Heaven knows, giving to this affair of my absent client's, gratuitously, as much thought and vigilance as ever I did to any case in which I was duly remunerated. This is self-sacrificing and noble, and just the conscientious conduct I should expect from myself.' But there was also this consideration, which you failed to define. 'Yes; my respected client, Mr. Mark Wylder, is suffering under some acute pressure, applied perhaps by my friend Captain Lake. Why should not I share in the profit--if such there be--by getting my hand too upon the instrument of compression? It is worth trying. Let us try.' The Reverend William Wylder was often at the Lodge now. Larkin had struck out a masterly plan. The vicar's reversion, a very chimerical contingency, he would by no means consent to sell. His little man--little Fairy--oh! no, he could not. The attorney only touched on this, remarking in a friendly way-- 'But then, you know, it is so mere a shadow.' This indeed, poor William knew very well. But though he spoke quite meekly, the attorney looked rather black, and his converse grew somewhat dry and short. This sinister change was sudden, and immediately followed the suggestion about the reversion; and the poor vicar was a little puzzled, and began to consider whether he had said anything _gauche_ or offensive--'it would be so very painful to appear ungrateful.' The attorney had the statement of title in one hand, and leaning back in his chair, read it demurely in silence, with the other tapping the seal-end of his gold pencil-case between his lips. 'Yes,' said Mr. Larkin, mildly, 'it is so _very_ shadowy--and that feeling, too, in the way. I suppose we had better, perhaps, put it aside, and maybe something else may turn up.' And the attorney rose grandly to replace the statement of title in its tin box, intimating thereby that the audience was ended. But the poor vicar was in rather urgent circumstances just then, and his troubles had closed in recently with a noiseless, but tremendous contraction, like that iron shroud in Mr. Mudford's fine tale; and to have gone away into outer darkness, with no project on the stocks, and the attorney's countenance averted, would have been simply despair. 'To speak frankly,' said the poor vicar, with that hectic in his cheek that came with agitation, 'I never fancied that my reversionary interest could be saleable.'