‘I am better now,’ Mr. Fishwick answered.  But the sweat that stood on his brow went far to belie his words.  ’I—­yes, I think I’ll take an extract.  Sixty-one, was he?’

’Eighty-one, eighty-one, it says.  There’s pen and ink, but you’ll please to give me five shillings before you write.  Thank you kindly.  Lord save us, but that is not the one.  You’re taking out the one above it.’

’I’ll have ’em all—­for identification,’ Mr. Fishwick replied, wiping his forehead nervously.

‘Sho!  You have no need.’

‘I think I will.’

‘What, all?’

‘Well, the one before and the one after.’

‘Dods! man, but that will be fifteen shillings!’ the clerk cried, aghast at such extravagance.

‘You’ll only charge for the entry I want?’ the lawyer said with an effort.

‘Well—­we’ll say five shillings for the other two.’

Mr. Fishwick closed with the offer, and with a hand which was still unsteady paid the money and extracted the entries.  Then he took his hat, and hurriedly, his eyes averted, turned to go.

‘If it’s money,’ the old clerk said, staring at him as if he could never satisfy his inquisitiveness, ‘you’ll not forget me?’

‘If it’s money,’ Mr. Fishwick said with a ghastly smile, ’it shall be some in your pocket.’

‘Thank you kindly.  Thank you kindly, sir!  Now who would ha’ thought when you stepped in here you were stepping into fortune, so to speak?’

‘Just so,’ Mr. Fishwick answered, a spasm distorting his face.  ’Who’d have thought it?  Good morning!’

‘And good-luck!’ the clerk bawled after him.  ‘Good-luck!’

Mr. Fishwick fluttered a hand backward, but made no answer.  His first object was to escape from the court; this done, he plunged through a stream of traffic, and having covered his trail, went on rapidly, seeking a quiet corner.  He found one in a square among some warehouses, and standing, pulled out the copy he had made from the register.  It was neither on the first nor the second entry, however, that his eyes dwelled, while the hand that held the paper shook as with the ague.  It was the third fascinated him:—­

‘September 19th,’ it ran, ’at the Bee in Steep Street, Julia, daughter of Anthony and Julia Soane of Estcombe, aged three, and buried the 21st of the month.’

Mr. Fishwick read it thrice, his lips quivering; then he slowly drew from a separate pocket a little sheaf of papers, frayed at the corners, and soiled with much and loving handling.  He selected from these a slip; it was one of those which Mr. Thomasson had surprised on the table in the room at the Castle Inn.  It was a copy of the attestation of birth ’of Julia, daughter of Anthony Soane, of Estcombe, England, and Julie his wife’; the date, August, 1747; the place, Dunquerque.

The Attorney drew a long quivering breath, and put the papers up again, the packet in the place from which he had taken it, the extract from the Bristol register in another pocket.  Then, after drawing one or two more sighs as if his heart were going out of him, he looked dismally upwards as in protest against heaven.  At length he turned and went back to the thoroughfare, and there, with a strangely humble air, asked a passer-by the nearest way to Steep Street.