'What the devil difficulty _can_ there be, Sir? I can't see it, any more than what _hurry_ can possibly exist about it,' said Lake, stung with a momentary fury. It seemed as though everyone was conspiring to perplex and torment him; and he, like the poor vicar, though for very different reasons, had grown intensely anxious to sell. He had grown to dread the attorney, since the arrival of Dutton's letter. He suspected that his journey to London had for its object a meeting with that person. He could not tell what might be going on in the dark. But the possibility of such a conjunction might well dismay him. On the other hand, the more Mr. Larkin relied upon the truth of Dutton's letter, the cooler he became respecting the purchase of Five Oaks. It was, of course, a very good thing; but not his first object. The vicar's reversion in that case was everything; and of it he was now sure. 'There is no difficulty about the note, Sir; it contains but four lines, and I've given you the form. No difficulty can exist but in the one quarter; and the fact is,' he added, steadily, 'unless I have that note before I leave to-morrow-morning, I'll assume that you wish to be off, Captain Lake, and I will adapt myself to circumstances.' 'You may have it _now_,' said the captain, with a fierce carelessness. 'D--d nonsense! Who could have fancied any such stupid hurry? Send in the morning, and you shall have it.' And the captain rather savagely turned away, skirting the crowd who hovered about the band, in his leisurely and now solitary ramble. The captain was sullen that evening at home. He was very uncomfortable. His heart was failing him for the things that were coming to pass. One of his maniacal tempers, which had often before thrown him, as it were, 'off the rails,' was at the bottom of his immediate troubles. This proneness to sudden accesses of violence and fury was the compensation which abated the effect of his ordinary craft and self-command. He had done all he could to obviate the consequences of his folly in this case. He hoped the attorney might not succeed in discovering Jim Dutton's whereabouts. At all events, he had been beforehand, and taken measures to quiet that person's dangerous resentment. But it was momentous in the critical state of things to give this dangerous attorney a handsome share in his stake--to place him, as he had himself said, 'in the same boat,' and enlist all his unscrupulous astuteness in maintaining his title: and if he went to London disappointed, and that things turned out unluckily about Dutton, it might be a very awful business indeed. Dinner had been a very dull _tete-a-tete_. Dorcas sat stately and sad--looking from the window toward the distant sunset horizon, piled in dusky gold and crimson clouds, against the faded, green sky--a glory that is always melancholy and dreamy. Stanley sipped his claret, his eyes upon the cloth. He raised them and looked out, too; and the ruddy light tinted his pale features.