This style of attack, as impetuous as a charge of bayonets, evidently startled the good Doctor.
"Who are you?" he asked, sneeringly.
"I am the man who wrote the letters to these three gentlemen, yesterday," dryly responded the cloaked gentleman.
"This is a conspiracy," growled Bulgin. "Take care, sir! There is a law for conspirators against character and reputation—"
"Baugh!" responded the old gentleman, shrugging his shoulders; and then he beckoned with his hand, toward the recess in which stood the bed. "Come in," he said, "it is time."
Two persons emerged from the recess; one, an old man, of portly form, and mild, good-humored face—now, alas! dark and corrugated with suppressed wrath; the other, a slender woman, with pale face, and large, intellectual eyes,—and a baby, sleeping on her bosom.
Bulgin uttered an oath.
"My wife!—her father!" was all he could utter.
"I have summoned you from your home in the country," said the cloaked gentleman, "to meet me at this house at this unusual hour, to show you the husband and son-in-law in his festival attire, and in company with his paramour.—Look at him! Isn't he beautiful?"
The wife rushed forward, with an indignant glance—