He could not see a ray of light in the darkness anyhow. He saw no means whereby he could solve this great puzzle. Everything was mad confusion.
He heard the key turning in the lock.
"I must wait; I must think, think, mother. Meanwhile, do nothing."
The door opened, and a moment later his mother left the cell, leaving Paul alone.
CHAPTER XX
MAN AND WIFE
A number of men were dining in the principal hotel in Manchester. They all belonged to the legal profession, and had been drawn thither by the assizes which were being held. Most of them were men who had won a position in the realm of the law, and were now visiting Manchester because their profession had called them thither. They were attached to the Northern Circuit, and were doing their best to make their stay in the smoky metropolis as pleasant as possible. A few there were who were as yet hungry for briefs and could not get them, but who deemed it a privilege and an honour to be invited to dine with their more successful brethren.
Perhaps there is no profession in the land which offer greater possibilities than that of the Bar. On the other hand, there is no calling more fraught with disappointment. Many there are who, after a brilliant University career, and having adopted the Bar as a profession, have to wait year after year without even earning the salary of a four-loom weaver. Proud, sensitive men as some of them are, to have to wait around on the chance of getting a brief must be exquisite torture. Yet such are the chances of the Bar that many undergo the ordeal in the hope that by and by success will come. There were some of these at the gathering which I have just mentioned. They had accepted the invitation to dine with their successful brethren, not without hope that some crumbs might fall from the rich man's table and be enjoyed by them. Added to this, Judge Bolitho, who had won such renown while practising as a barrister on the Northern Circuit, and now appointed judge at the High Court of Justice, was also present. Some of the younger men regarded him with a certain amount of awe, and they wondered whether the time would come when they, who now depended upon the goodwill of their friends, might aspire to the heights which he had reached. After all, it was not impossible, for the Bar, like every other profession, was a gamble.
It had been a merry gathering. They had dined well. The hotel was noted for its cuisine and for the quality of its wines, and the best which the great establishment afforded had been placed at their disposal. Many good stories were told. Those who were now at the top of the tree related incidents of their younger days, when they, like the young fellows who now listened to them so eagerly, were hungry for briefs. Mr. Bakewell, in particular, the man who that day was the counsel for the prosecution in Paul Stepaside's case, was an utterly different man from what he had been when he appeared in court. Then he was solemn, pompous, and almost lugubrious; now he cracked a joke with the best, and told humorous stories with infinite gusto. The judge, too, while naturally patronising and unable to throw aside in entirety the dignity of his office, so far unbent as to be the best of companions.