the captain, with a peevish sullenness.

'I was thinking, Captain Lake, whether in the event of its turning out
that Mr. Mark Wylder was _dead_, it would be thought proper to lay his
body here?'

'Dead, Sir!--and what the plague puts that in your head? You are
corresponding with him--aren't you?'

'I'll tell you exactly how that is, Captain Lake. May I take the liberty
to ask you for one moment to look up?'

As between these two gentlemen, this, it must be allowed, was an
impertinent request. But Captain Lake did look up, and there was
something extraordinarily unpleasant in his yellow eyes, as he fixed them
upon the contracted pupils of the attorney, who, nothing daunted, went
on--

'Pray, excuse me--thank you, Captain Lake--they say one is better heard
when looked at than when not seen; and I wish to speak rather low, for
reasons.'

Each looked the other in the eyes, with that uncertain and sinister gaze
which has a character both of fear and menace.

'I have received those letters, Captain Lake, of which I spoke to you
when I last had the honour of seeing you, as furnishing, in certain
circumstances connected with them, grave matter of suspicion, since when
I have _not_ received one with Mr. Wylder's signature. But I _have_
received, only the other day, a letter from a new correspondent--a person