Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/181

 *cote must be Emma Harrison's advocate or she must do without one.

In the meantime Northcote's tense emotion had been well served by the cold iron against which his face was pressed. It seemed to possess a medicinal quality which entered his arteries. Once more his mind was able to exert its faculty. His courage, his fecundity of idea, the sense of his destiny, had seemed to return.

The discomposure of the solicitor and the nervous tension of the advocate were intruded upon at last by the constable, who had taken rather more than three-quarters of an hour to perform his mission.

"Will you come this way, gentlemen?" he said.

They were conducted along more dark and apparently interminable passages, up one flight of stone steps and down two others, until at last they found themselves in a room similar to the one they had left, except that it was larger and gloomier, smelt rather more poisonous, and looked somewhat more funereal.

Northcote's heart was again beating violently as he stepped over its threshold, and his excitement was not in the least allayed when he discovered that there was no one in it.

"If you will kindly take a seat, gentlemen," said their guide, "Harrison will be here in a few minutes."

"In other words, twenty," said Mr. Whitcomb, beginning a tour of inspection of this dismal apartment. "These small mementoes may have some slight interest for you, my friend," he said to Northcote.