All these persons turned their eyes upon me as I came in and bowed low to the company; and then Mr.Chiffinch jerked back a chair that was beside him, and beckoned to me to sit down in it.

The room appeared to me a secret kind of place, with curtains pulled across the windows, where a man might be very private if he wished.

Mr.Chiffinch ended speaking as I came in, and all sat silent.
His Majesty broke the silence.
"You are very late, Mr.Mallock," he said--no more than that; but I felt the reproof very keenly.

"Tell him, Chiffinch." Then Mr.Chiffinch related to me an extraordinary story; and he told it very well, balancing the two sides of it, so that I could not tell what he thought.
It appeared that a day or two ago, Doctor Tonge had come to my Lord Danby, in pursuance of the tale he had told before, saying that he had received further information, from the very man whom he had suspected, and now had certified, to be the writer of the first information under forty-three heads, to the effect that a packet of letters was on its way to Windsor, to that very Mr.Bedingfeld (of whom Mr.Whitbread had spoken to me), on the matter of the plot to murder the King, and the Duke too unless he would consent to the affair.

My Lord Danby posted immediately to Windsor that he might intercept these letters and examine them for himself; but found that not only had Mr.Bedingfeld received them, but had taken them to the Duke, saying that he did not understand one word that was written in them.