'He understood my situation if she married, and what I deserved,' said
Mrs. Nicholson, growing rather uncomfortable, and fidgeting in the
client's chair.

Merton, too, understood, and knew what the sympathetic arguments of
Jephson must have been.

'And, after all,' Merton asked, 'the lover has prospered in his suit?'

'This is how he got round her. He said to me that night, in private:
"Mrs. Nicholson," said he, "your niece is a very interesting historical
subject. I am deeply anxious, apart from my own passion for her, to
relieve her from a singular but not very uncommon delusion."

'"Meaning her lover in cocky," I said.

'"There is no lover in cocky," says he.

'"No Dr. Ingles!" said I.

'"Yes, there _is_ a Dr. Ingles, but he is not her lover, and your niece
never met him. I bicycled to Tutbury lately, and, after examining the
scene of Queen Mary's captivity, I made a few inquiries. What I had
always suspected proved to be true. Dr. Ingles was not present at that
ball at the Bear at Tutbury."

'Well,' Mrs. Nicholson went on, 'you might have knocked me down with a
feather! I had never asked my second cousins the question, not wanting
them to guess about my affairs. But down I sat, and wrote to Maria, and