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THE REGICIDE.
There was a sharp grue of ice in the air, as Mr.Nicholas Lovel climbed the rickety wooden stairs to his lodgings in Chancery Lane hard by Lincoln's Inn.

That morning he had ridden in from his manor in the Chilterns, and still wore his heavy horseman's cloak and the long boots splashed with the mud of the Colne fords.

He had been busy all day with legal matters--conveyances on which his opinion was sought, for, though it was the Christmas vacation, his fame among the City merchants kept him busy in term and out of it.

Rarely, he thought, had he known London in so strange a temper.