Larkin's tone was now much moderated. Any sort of dealing was good enough for the simple vicar; but here was the quiet, sagacious peer, who had shown himself, on two remarkable committees, so quick and able a man of business, and the picture of the vicar's situation, and of the powers and terrors of Messrs. Burlington and Smith, were to be drawn with an exacter pencil, and far more delicate colouring. Lord Chelford listened so quietly that the tall attorney felt he was making way with him, and concluded his persuasion by appealing to him for an opinion. 'That is precisely as I said. I knew my friend, Mr. Larkin, would be only too glad of an opinion in this difficulty from you,' threw in the vicar. The opinion came--very clear, very quiet, very unpleasant--dead against Mr. Larkin's view, and concluding with the remark that he thought there was more in the affair than had yet come to light. 'I don't see exactly how, my lord,' said Mr. Larkin, a little loftily, and redder than usual. 'Nor do I, Mr. Larkin, at present; but the sum offered is much too small, and the amount of costs and other drawbacks utterly monstrous, and the result is, after deducting all these claims, including your costs, Mr. Larkin----' Here Mr. Larkin threw up his chin a little, smiling, and waving his long hand, and saying, 'Oh! as to _mine_,' in a way that plainly expressed, 'They are merely put down for form's sake. It is playing at costs. You know Jos. Larkin--he never so much as dreamed of looking for them.' 'There remain hardly nine hundred and fifty pounds applicable to the payment of the Reverend Mr. Wylder's debts--a sum which would have been ample, before this extraordinary negotiation was commenced, to have extricated him from all his pressing difficulties, and which I would have been only too happy at being permitted to advance, and which, and a great deal more, Miss Lake, whose conduct has been more than kind--quite noble--wished to place in your client's hands.' '_That_,' said the attorney, flushing a little, 'I believe to have been technically impossible; and it was accompanied by a proposition which was on other grounds untenable.' 'You mean Miss Lake's proposed residence here--an arrangement, it appears to me, every way most desirable.' 'I objected to it on, I will say, _moral_ grounds, my lord. It is painful to me to disclose what I know, but that young lady accompanied Mr. Mark Wylder, my lord, in his midnight flight from Dollington, and remained in London, under, I presume, his protection for some time.' 'That statement, Sir, is, I happen to _know_, utterly contrary to fact. The young lady you mention never even saw Mr. Mark Wylder, since she took leave of him in the drawing-room at Brandon; and I state this not in vindication of her, but to lend weight to the caution I give you against ever again presuming to connect her name with your surmises.'