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Barnard's practice, like most others, was subject to those fluctuations that fill the struggling practitioner alternately with hope and despair The work canation One of these intermissions occurred on the day after my visit to Nevill's Court, with the result that by half-past eleven I foundwhat I should do with the rehty proble on the parapet, contee with its perspective of arches, the picturesque pile of the shot-towers, and beyond, the shadowy shapes of the Abbey and St Stephen's

It was a pleasant scene, restful and quiet, with a touch of life and a hint of sober roh the sail hoisted to a jury mast and a white-aproned woman at the tiller Drea tide, noted the low freeboard, al on the forecastle yapping at the distant shore--and thought of Ruth Bellinghairl that had made so deep an impression on me? That was the question that I propounded to myself, and not for the first time Of the fact itself there was no doubt But as the explanation? Was it her unusual surroundings? Her occupation and rather recondite learning? Her striking personality and exceptional good looks? Or her connection with the dramatic mystery of her lost uncle?

I concluded that it was all of these Everything connected with her was unusual and arresting; but over and above these circumstances there was a certain syly conscious and of which I dimly hoped that she, perhaps, was a little conscious, too At any rate, I was deeply interested in her; of that there was no doubt whatever Short as our acquaintance had been, she held a place in hts that had never been held by any other woham my reflections passed by a natural transition to the curious story that her father had told me It was a queer affair, that ill-draill, with the baffled lawyer protesting in the background It al behind it all, especially when I reular proposal But it was out of my depth; it was a case for a lawyer, and to a lawyer it should go This very night, I resolved, I would go to Thorndyke and give him the whole story as it had been told to me