"Take them to Macklin and Dowell."
"And had you not better do so at once? They are of the highest consequence."
"Yes, aunt."
She rose and went to her room, and dressed herself listlessly: and when she was dressed, a cab was called and she drove away. She was not more than an hour at Macklin and Dowell's. When she was leaving, the two members of the firm conducted her to the cab. The last words they said to her, as they handed her into the vehicle, were:
"If the documents and the history are good, the case is clear; and we have every reason to believe both are good."
When she found herself alone in the cab rolling to Knightsbridge, she covered her eyes with her hands and sobbed hysterically:
"I wish the history and the documents had left Charlie alone, and left him to me."
CHAPTER III.
[THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL.]
About a fortnight after the arrival of the letter and the documents which caused such a profound sensation at Miss Traynor's, and while the elder and younger women were idling over the end of a very late breakfast, a hansom cab drew up sharply at the hall-door, and a man ran quickly up the steps and knocked briskly.