He had a coupe all to himself. But he did not care for the prospect. He saw Lawyer Larkin, as it were, reflected in the plate-glass, with his hollow smile and hungry eyes before him, knowing more than he should do, paying him compliments, and plotting his ruin. 'Everything would have been quite smooth only for that d---- fellow. The Devil fixed him precisely there for the express purpose of fleecing and watching, and threatening him--perhaps worse. He hated that sly, double-dealing reptile of prey--the arachnida of social nature--the spiders with which also naturalists place the scorpions. I dare say Mr. Larkin would have had as little difficulty in referring the gallant captain to the same family. While Stanley Lake is thus scanning the shabby, but dangerous image of the attorney in the magic mirror before him, that eminent limb of the law was not inactive in the quiet town of Gylingden. Under ordinary circumstances his 'pride' would have condemned the vicar to a direful term of suspense, and he certainly would not have knocked at the door of the pretty little gabled house at the Dollington end of the town for many days to come. The vicar would have had to seek out the attorney, to lie in wait for and to woo him. But Jos. Larkin's pride, like all his other passions--except his weakness for the precious metals--was under proper regulation. Jim Dutton might arrive at any moment, and it would not do to risk his publishing the melancholy intelligence of Mark Wylder's death before the transfer of the vicar's reversion; and to prevent that risk the utmost promptitude was indispensable. At nine o'clock, therefore, he presented himself, attended by his legal henchmen as before.