said; he might give offence; things might turn out far otherwise than
according to first appearances; for his part, he could not believe
anything amiss of so sweet a lady. And after all, it would be better to
wait till we reached the office.'

Thus much then was clear--Agnes was under some accusation. This was
already worse than the worst I had anticipated. 'And then,' said I,
thinking aloud to Hannah, 'one of two things is apparent to me; either
the accusation is one of pure hellish malice, without a color of
probability or the shadow of a foundation, and that way, alas! I am
driven in my fears by that Hungarian woman's prophecy; or, which but
for my desponding heart I should be more inclined to think, the charge
has grown out of my poor wife's rustic ignorance as to the usages then
recently established by law with regard to the kind of money that could
be legally tendered. This, however, was a suggestion that did not tend
to alleviate my anxiety; and my nervousness had mounted to a painful,
almost to a disabling degree, by the time we reached the office.
Already on our road thither some parties had passed us who were
conversing with eagerness upon the case: so much we collected from the
many and ardent expressions about 'the lady's beauty,' though the rest
of such words as we could catch were ill calculated to relieve my
suspense. This, then, at least, was certain--that my poor timid Agnes
had already been exhibited before a tumultuous crowd; that her name and
reputation had gone forth as a subject of discussion for the public;
and that the domestic seclusion and privacy within which it was her
matronly privilege to move had already undergone a rude violation.

The office, and all the purlieus of the office, were occupied by a
dense crowd. That, perhaps, was always the case, more or less, at this
time of day; but at present the crowd was manifestly possessed by a