'He didn't say,' replied his clerk, shutting the door by butting his shoulder against it.
'Good!' replied Rust, abruptly. 'Any thing else?'
'No. If you're done with me, I'll get my breakfast.'
Kornicker departed, and Rust relapsed into his old attitude, occasionally biting his nails, or passing his fingers through his matted hair, or casting a suspicious glance toward the door.
Half an hour had passed, and Rust was absorbed in his own dreams, when he was startled by a heavy step at his door. He sat up in his chair, and listened attentively, holding his breath. There was something in that step which he did not like. It was calm, slow, and deliberate. He hoped that it would pass on, but it did not. Two hard knocks at the door followed.
The door opened, and Harson and Holmes entered. Still Rust sat where he was, with his black eyes peering from beneath his heavy brows, and glancing from face to face.
'I'm seeking a Mr. Rust,' said Harson, advancing.
'That's me. My name is Rust,' was the laconic answer.
'And mine is Harson,' replied the other. 'I received this, this morning,' said he, pointing to the letter which he had received from Kornicker, 'and have come to keep the appointment proposed in it.'
Rust moved uneasily on his chair, and turned to the lawyer; for some moments he did not speak; but at last, seeing that no farther efforts at opening a conversation were made by his visitors, he pointed to Holmes, and asked:
'Is that gentleman's name Henry Harson, too?'
'Then he wasn't invited here. My note was to Henry Harson, and to no one else. My conversation is to be on private matters, which I don't choose to make known to every body.'
'Perhaps it is as well that I should go,' said Holmes, without any trace of anger. 'I'll leave you, Harry, and will return in half an hour.'
He was leaving the room, when Harson laid his hand on his arm, and said: 'No, no; don't go, Dick; I can't spare you.' Turning to Rust he added: 'There are no secrets between this man and me, and I don't intend that there shall be. So, what you have to say, you must speak out before us both, or keep it to yourself.'
Rust eyed him for a few moments in silence, with his thin lips closely compressed, and then looked on the floor, apparently making up his mind. At length he said, in a slow tone: 'So you _will_ have him here, will you? Well, be it so. Should what I say hit hard, thank yourself that one more knows it than is necessary!'