The lawyer's face was very grave as he listened.
"It will not be an easy task, my lord," he ventured to say to Lord
Barminster as he took his departure, "but I will do my best, and will
have opinion of the highest counsel obtainable."
They were soon ready to undertake the return journey, and before parting
with the kindly inspector, Lord Barminster very warmly thanked him. All
felt that they had been spared a great deal of humiliation by the way he
had so far conducted the case. At the Castle they found that nothing was
known of the affair. Miss Penelope had retired to her own rooms to
recover from the fatigue of the ball, while Constance was quite serene,
strong in her loving faith in Adrien and content to ask no questions.
Jasper Vermont had also left Barminster, but had sent a note in which be
stated that he was working in his friend's interest, and hoped to
unearth the mystery of the conspiracy. This sounded plausible and meant
nothing--which was thoroughly characteristic of Mr. Vermont.
The cases at the Central Criminal Court were fortunately light ones, and
did not take long to settle, so that the interval between the acceptance
of bail and the date of the trial was a short one.
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