He durst not let his correspondence be read, and filtered, in the outer office.

He opened the whole mass; sent some back into the outer office; then touched a hand-bell, and a man emerged from the small apartment adjoining his own.
This was Mr.Atkins, his shorthand writer.

He dictated to this man some twenty letters, which were taken down in short-hand; the man retired to copy them, and write them out in duplicate from his own notes, and this reduced the number to seven.

These Wardlaw sat down to write himself, and lock up the copies.
While he was writing them, he received a visitor or two, whom he dispatched as quickly as his letters.
He was writing his last letter, when he heard in the outer office a voice he thought he knew.

He got up and listened.