The Malefactor
I leave you the legacy of a greater one than all Asia will yield to me! Lady Ruth is married to Lumley, and they hold today in London a very distinguished social position. Tomorrow Wingrave takes a hand in the game. He was once my friend; I was in court when he was tried; I was intimately acquainted with the lawyer's clerk who had the arrangement of his papers. I know what no one else breathing knows. He is a man who never forgives; a man who was brutally deceived, and who for years has had no other occupation than to brood upon his wrongs. He is very wealthy indeed, still young, he has marvelous tenacity of purpose, and he has brains. Tomorrow he will be free!'

Aynesworth drew a little breath.

'I wonder,' he murmured, 'if anything will happen.'

Lovell shrugged his shoulders.

'Where I go,' he said, 'the cruder passions may rage, and life and death be reckoned things of little account. But you who remain—who can tell?--you may look into the face of mightier things.'

Three men were together in a large and handsomely furnished sitting room of the Clarence Hotel, in Piccadilly. One, pale, quiet, and unobtrusive, dressed in sober black, the typical lawyer's clerk, was busy gathering up a collection of papers and documents from the table, over which they had been strewn. His employer, who had more the appearance of a country gentleman than the junior partner in the well-known firm of Rocke and Son, solicitors, had risen to his feet, and was drawing on his gloves. At the head of the table was the client.

'I trust, Sir Wingrave, that you are satisfied with this account of our stewardship,' the solicitor said, as his clerk left the room. 'We have felt it a great responsibility at times, but everything seems to have turned out very well. The investments, of course, are all above suspicion.'

'Perfectly satisfied, I thank you,' was the quiet reply. 'You seem to have studied my interests in a very satisfactory manner.'

Mr. Rocke had other things to say, but his client's manner seemed designed to create a barrier of formality between them. He hesitated, unwilling to leave, yet finding it exceedingly difficult to say the things which were in his mind. He temporized by referring back to matters already discussed, solely for the purpose of prolonging the interview.

'You have quite made up your mind, then, to put the Tredowen property on the market,' he remarked. 'You will excuse my 
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