"Give yourself no uneasiness, Mrs. Berners," he said. "Your case lies in a nut-shell. It is based upon your own explanation of your attitude at the bed-side of the victim, and upon the fact, which I shall undertake to prove, that the assassin had escaped from the window at the foot of the bed."
The lawyer spoke so cheerfully that Sybil's spirits rose again.
He then, as a precautionary measure, he said, to give them the help of the greatest bulwarks of the bar, advised that they should write to Washington to engage the services of the celebrated Ishmael Worth, who, in a case like this, would apply in the regular way to be admitted to plead.
Mr. Berners accepted this advice, and said that he would lose no time in following it.
Then the lawyer took his leave.
He had scarcely got out of sight before Captain Pendleton and his sister Beatrix drove up to the door.
"I have come to stay with you as long as you will let me, my darling," said Beatrix, as Sybil hastened to welcome her.
"Then you will stay with me forever, or until you are happily married, dearest," answered Sybil, hospitably, as she led her friend up to a bedroom to lay off her bonnet.
Captain Pendleton, meantime, was taken care of by Mr. Berners.
"Clement!" said the latter, when he had taken his guest to his dressing-room, "we are old, tried friends, and need not fear to speak the truth to each other. Tell me now, frankly, has not the action of the judge, in admitting Sybil to bail, been very much censured? Will it not injure him and affect his position, even to the risk of impeachment?"