"It was for the best," said the Dean.
"Certainly for the best," said the unruffled lawyer. "I would now recommend that I may be commissioned to send out my own confidential clerk to learn all the circumstances of the case; and that I should inform Mr. Stokes that I am going to do so, on your instructions, Lord George." Lord George shivered. "I think we should even offer to give his Lordship time to send an agent with my clerk if he pleases to do so, or to send one separately at the same time, or to take any other step that he may please. It is clearly your duty, my Lord, to have the inquiry made."
"Your manifest duty," said the Dean, unable to restrain his triumph.
Lord George pleaded for delay, and before he left the lawyer's chambers almost quarrelled with his father-in-law; but before he did leave them he had given the necessary instructions.
CHAPTER XXIX.
MR. HOUGHTON WANTS A GLASS OF SHERRY.
Lord George, when he got out of the lawyer's office with his father-in-law, expressed himself as being very angry at what had been done. While discussing the matter within, in the presence of Mr. Battle, he had been unable to withstand the united energies of the Dean and the lawyer, but, nevertheless, even while he had yielded, he had felt that he was being driven.
"I don't think he was at all justified in making any inquiry," he said, as soon as he found himself in the Square.
"My dear George," replied the Dean, "the quicker this can be done the better."