"No," answered Mr. Lang slowly and solemnly; "no, no, that ain't good enough for me, not by no means. If I can earn enough in foreign parts (I want no secrets from a lady like you) I will put the wife into a business. That there new Act is a jolly good thing for such as us; and then, if you have no call for me, I'll try to get a berth as foreman.

Mrs. Mortomley," he added almost in a whisper, and bending his head eagerly forward, "_have you found anything yet_?"

"No," she answered; "nevertheless, I think it is to be done. Lang," and rising in her earnestness she went on, "are you true or are you false?

Can I trust you or can I not?"

"True before God, ma'am," he replied rising likewise. "And you may trust me to the death."

"That is enough," she answered; then added imperatively, "Sit down. If you are going to-morrow, I must speak to you now."

"Is--is there a drop of cold tea about anywhere, ma'am?" he asked, feeling he needed something perfectly to steady his senses, and yet fearing to touch water as though he were a mad dog.

Dolly laughed; the experience tickled her, and going to a cupboard which held Susan's treasures, produced a pot from which she poured a cup of cold tea.

"Milk and sugar?" she asked.

"Milk will do, thank you," said Mr. Lang, and he drank half a pint off at a draught.

Mrs. Mortomley watched him finish with a grave smile; then she said,

"If you and I are ever to row in the same boat, Lang, you must take less--cold tea."

"I'd take the pledge if you asked me," he answered eagerly, but Dolly shook her head.

"Whenever Mr. Mortomley has to attend no longer at Salisbury House," she said, "I mean to leave London."

"Well, our work can be done anywhere," said Lang reflectively.

"That is precisely what I think," agreed Mrs. Mortomley; "but before we go further I want you to understand one thing clearly. Through misadventure I am not going to sell my husband a second time. If I ever find those formulae, or if I am ever able to extract them from Mr.

Mortomley's memory, I shall keep them to myself. Do you understand? If you like to work with me on that condition, well and good; if not, let us wish each other fortune's best gifts, and part now, you to go to Germany, I to do the best I can in England."

Mr. Lang paused. This was a move he had not expected; but aided, perhaps, by the cold tea, he recovered himself immediately.

"I am quite willing to work with you and for you, ma'am, on those conditions. If I serve you faithful, I am sure you won't leave my name out when your books are balanced. Look here, ma'am, I did think to go in with you share and share alike in everything, but--"

"Look _you_ here, Lang," Mrs. Mortomley interrupted, speaking very decidedly, "My husband's brains are all that are left to him now, and I will help no man to steal them, neither will I suffer any one to steal them, you may depend. I am thankful to remember Mr. Swanland when he took his business from him, was unable to take his trade secrets as well, and I will put it in the power of no person to use Mr. Mortomley's processes without his knowledge and permission. So now, as I said before, if you do not like my conditions, let us abandon your plan.

About money, if we make any, I shall not be niggardly; but if you stay with me for twenty years, you will know no more of Mr. Mortomley's secrets than you do to-night."

Lang sat silent for a minute. He had not bargained for this. He had felt willing enough to prosecute the plan he himself had suggested to Mrs.

Mortomley without any immediate revelations being made to him concerning the manipulation of those choicer colours for which the Mortomleys had long been famous, but he was not prepared for the frank assurance that Mrs. Mortomley intended to leave him out in the cold for ever. He intended to be utterly true to the Mortomleys; but, at the same time, he desired naturally to serve himself, and he believed he could never hope to do that effectually unless he were made acquainted with the means whereby his late employer had produced those effects which rendered the Homewood works celebrated wherever colours were bought and sold.

Who would have supposed that a lady who twelve months before could not have told ochre from umber should all at once develop such an amount of business capacity as to understand precisely which way Mr. Lang's desires led, and at once put a padlock on the gate by which he hoped to reach his goal?

Mr. Lang sat and thought this over as thoroughly as the state of his head would permit, and Dolly sat and watched him anxiously. She was determined not to yield a point; and yet if Lang decided to have nothing to do with those still unopened works, the idea of which had been originated by himself, she failed to see what she should unaided be able to accomplish.

At last Lang spoke. "I think you are hard upon me, ma'am. If I do my best to work up a business for Mr. Mortomley, it seems only justice I should have some benefit from it."

"That is quite true," agreed Mrs. Mortomley.

"But I cannot have any tangible benefit unless--"

"Go on," said Dolly as he paused, "or shall I finish the sentence for you--unless we take you so far into our confidence that we could not safely throw you over."

"I do not think, ma'am, you ought to put it in that way," remarked Lang, who naturally disliked such explicit utterances.

"If you can suggest any better way in which to put it, pray do so," she replied. "The fact is, Lang, one or other of us must have faith--you in me, or I in you. Now I think it is you who ought to have faith in me, because so far as anything is mine to trust, you shall have perfect control over it. I must put the most utter confidence in your honesty, your skill, and your industry. The only trust I withhold is that which is not mine to give, which belongs entirely to my husband; but this much I will say, Lang,--if hereafter, when Mr. Mortomley's health is re-established, differences should arise among us, and you desire to leave, I would most earnestly ask him to mark his sense of all you have done and tried to do for me by giving you two or three receipts, which might enable you to carry on a small business successfully on your own account."

"You would do that, ma'am?"

"Most certainly," she answered.

"Would you mind giving me your hand on it?"

Dolly laughed, and held out her hand. What a bit of a hand it was! Mr.

Lang took it in his as he might have taken a fragile piece of china, and appeared excessively uncomfortable now he had got what he desired.

"There is one thing more I would wish to say, ma'am," he remarked, when, this ceremony concluded, an awkward pause seemed impending.

"Why do you not say it then?" asked Mrs. Mortomley.

"Because I am afraid of offending. But I may just observe that I hope you won't think of making Mr. Rupert one of our firm."

"Mr. Rupert!" she repeated in surprise. "He has done with business for ever. He would never wish to be connected with it again."

"But if he did, ma'am?"

"I should not wish it," Mrs. Mortomley answered. Then added, "I would not have Mr. Rupert in any business in which I had any interest. I am certain he would do his best to serve me or his uncle, but I do not think he has any especial genius for colour making."

"They do say at Swanland's," observed Mr. Lang, coughing apologetically, "that there is a great talk of Mr. Rupert going into business with Mr. Brett. They do say there Mr. Rupert knows all Mr.

Mortomley's processes; and if so be as how such is the case, Mr. Brett and he will make a good thing of it."

Dolly sat silent for a minute; then she asked,

"Did Mr. Rupert know anything of the business when we were at Homewood, Lang?"

"No, that I will take my oath he did not," was the prompt reply.

"Then by what means could he have learned anything of it since?"

"That is best known to himself, ma'am. If he found anything at Homewood, and kept it--"

"He could not, Lang. My husband was always most careful about his papers."

"Or if he has been able to pump Mr. Mortomley since you left Homewood."

"That is not likely either," said Dolly, and yet as she spoke she remembered that not five minutes before Susan came to tell her Lang was below, her husband had thrust a piece of paper over to Rupert, saying, "There is something out of which money might be made, though I shall never make it," and like a simpleton she had attached little importance to the utterance, until Lang's words revealed its significance to her.

"Suppose we leave Mr. Rupert out of the question altogether," she suggested.