"But--but the lady, sir?" repeated the timid clerk again.
"I said the application was to be by letter."
The clerk, seeing that this was the answer he was expected to deliver, went sliding out of the room; but at the door encountered the lady in question, dressed in black, and closely veiled.
"Madam," he stammered, growing red, "the application was to be by letter."
"I preferred to come personally."
As she spoke, low though her voice was, Mr. Dombrain looked up suddenly with a startled look on his face.
"Can you see me, Mr. Dombrain?"
He arose slowly to his feet, as if in obedience to some nervous impulse, and with his grey eyes looking straight at the veiled woman, still kept silence.
"Can you see me, Mr. Alfred Dombrain?"
The lawyer's red face had turned pale, and looked yellow in the gaslight. The hot atmosphere of the room evidently made him gasp, used as he was to it, for he opened his mouth as if to speak, then, closing it again, signed to the clerk to leave the room.