Sir Leicester appears to discharge his stately breast of a burden in passing this capital sentence, as if it were the next satisfactory thing to having the sentence executed.

“But night is coming on,” says he, “and my Lady will take cold.  My dear, let us go in.”

As they turn towards the hall-door, Lady Dedlock addresses Mr. Tulkinghorn for the first time.

“You sent me a message respecting the person whose writing I happened to inquire about.  It was like you to remember the circumstance; I had quite forgotten it.  Your message reminded me of it again.  I can’t imagine what association I had with a hand like that, but I surely had some.”

“You had some?” Mr. Tulkinghorn repeats.

“Oh, yes!” returns my Lady carelessly.  “I think I must have had some.  And did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of that actual thing—­what is it!—­affidavit?”

“Yes.”

“How very odd!”

They pass into a sombre breakfast-room on the ground floor, lighted in the day by two deep windows.  It is now twilight.  The fire glows brightly on the panelled wall and palely on the window-glass, where, through the cold reflection of the blaze, the colder landscape shudders in the wind and a grey mist creeps along, the only traveller besides the waste of clouds.

My Lady lounges in a great chair in the chimney-corner, and Sir Leicester takes another great chair opposite.  The lawyer stands before the fire with his hand out at arm’s length, shading his face.  He looks across his arm at my Lady.

“Yes,” he says, “I inquired about the man, and found him.  And, what is very strange, I found him—­”

“Not to be any out-of-the-way person, I am afraid!” Lady Dedlock languidly anticipates.

“I found him dead.”

“Oh, dear me!” remonstrated Sir Leicester.  Not so much shocked by the fact as by the fact of the fact being mentioned.

“I was directed to his lodging—­a miserable, poverty-stricken place —­and I found him dead.”

“You will excuse me, Mr. Tulkinghorn,” observes Sir Leicester.  “I think the less said—­”

“Pray, Sir Leicester, let me hear the story out” (it is my Lady speaking).  “It is quite a story for twilight.  How very shocking!  Dead?”

Mr. Tulkinghorn re-asserts it by another inclination of his head.  “Whether by his own hand—­”

“Upon my honour!” cries Sir Leicester.  “Really!”

“Do let me hear the story!” says my Lady.

“Whatever you desire, my dear.  But, I must say—­”

“No, you mustn’t say!  Go on, Mr. Tulkinghorn.”

Sir Leicester’s gallantry concedes the point, though he still feels that to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is really—­really—­

“I was about to say,” resumes the lawyer with undisturbed calmness, “that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my power to tell you.  I should amend that phrase, however, by saying that he had unquestionably died of his own act, though whether by his own deliberate intention or by mischance can never certainly be known.  The coroner’s jury found that he took the poison accidentally.”