By reason of favourable winds and propitious currents Mrs. Mortomley had almost sailed out of sight of those heavily-freighted merchant ships which hold on one accustomed course too calmly to suit the vagaries of such craft as she, when the death of Richard Halling and arrival of his son and daughter at Homewood threw her once again amongst people who were never likely to take kindly to or be desired by her.

Miss Halling was engaged to a middle-aged, or, indeed, elderly gentleman, who stood high in the estimation of City folks, and who himself had the highest opinion possible of individuals who, after making fortunes on Change, in Mincing Lane, or any other typical London Eldorado, did not turn their backs on the place where they gained their money as if ashamed of it, but were content to associate with their equals, and felt as much "honoured by an invitation to the Mansion House as dukes and duchesses might to an invitation to the Court of St.

James's."

This was literally Mr. Dean's style of conversation, and the reader who has been good enough to follow this story so far may comprehend the favour it found with Mrs. Mortomley. He had a comfortable old-fashioned house situated in the midst of good grounds. His gardens were well kept up; but were a weariness, if not to him, at least to Dolly, by reason of his being unable to find honest men to till the ground and his perpetual lamentations concerning the shortcomings of those he did employ.

There was not a picture hanging on his walls, not a horse in his stables, not a cow in his meadows, not a tree about his place that Dolly did not hate with the detestation born of utter weariness and mental exhaustion.

And in this case she had no choice but to suffer patiently. Antonia Halling had not been at Homewood three months before Mrs. Mortomley would have given her entire fortune to see her depart. Her friends filled the house. She herself simply deposed Dolly; and Dolly, though no saint, loved peace far too well to fight for the possession of a throne she knew she must ultimately re-ascend.

When Mr. Dean married Antonia, but not before. Judge, therefore, how anxious Dolly was to stand well with Mr. Dean; but she failed in her endeavour.

Mr. Dean "could not see anything in her." "She was not his style." "Her manners might please some people, apparently they did, but they did not recommend themselves to him." "Of course the fortune she had left her was one not be despised by a man in Mr. Mortomley's position, but he was doubtful whether a managing, steady, careful, sensible woman might not have proved a better-dowered wife than the one he had chosen."

For all of which remarks--that sooner or later reached her ears--Dolly cared not a groat. Slowly, however, it dawned upon her by degrees she never could recall--by a process as gradual as that which is effected when night is changed to day--that Mr. Dean and men like him not merely disapproved of her, which was nothing and to be expected, but looked down upon her husband, which was much and astounding.

By imperceptible degrees she arrived at the knowledge of the fact. More rapidly she grasped the reason, and came at the same time to a vague comprehension of the cause why between her soul and the souls of Mr.

Dean and men and women like him, there lay an antagonism which should for ever prevent their knitting into one.

All Christianity, all genius, all talent, all cleverness, all striving after an ideal, all industry; all patience, all bearing and forbearing, they held not as things in themselves intrinsically good, but as good only so far as they were available for money getting.

Unless the sermon, or the book, or the invention, or the philanthropy or the hard work, or the vague yet passionate yearnings after a higher life which shy and self-contained natures possess and keep silence concerning--produced money, and a large amount of it, too--they despised those products of the human mind.

They had made their money or their fathers had done so before them, and having made it they were to speak justly as they themselves could state their case, willing to subscribe to charities and missions, and put down their fifties, their hundreds, and their thousands at public meetings, and even to send anonymous donations when they thought such a style of giving might approve itself to God.

But of that swift untarrying generosity which gives and forgets itself has given--of that Christian feeling which seeing a brother in need relieves him and omits to debit the Almighty with a dole--Mr. Dean and his fellows having no knowledge, they accounted Mortomley foolish because he had not considered himself first and the man who had need second.

The world had gone on and the Mortomleys had stood still; but though they had not compassed their fair share of earthly prosperity, who shall say they were not "nearer the Kingdom" for that very reason.

Those traits in Mortomley's character which had won for him golden opinions from Mrs. Trebasson, and something more from her daughter, and which unconsciously to herself knit Dolly's heart to her husband firmer and closer as the years went by, would simply have been accounted foolishness by those who had done so remarkably well for themselves and their families. Their ideal of a good man was Henry Werner, who, upon a small business inherited from his father, had built himself a great commercial edifice; who was a "shrewd fellow" according to his admirers, and who, if he ever lapsed into generosity, took care to be generous wisely and profitably. No man would have caught that clever gentleman dispensing alms with only his left hand for audience. If there was a famine in the East, or a bad ship-wreck, or an hospital in want of funds, or any other calamity on sufficiently large a scale to justify the Lord Mayor in convening a public meeting on the subject, I warrant that Mr. Werner would be present on the occasion and put down his name for a sum calculated to prove that business with him was flourishing.

But all the private almsgiving which was done in his family was done by Mrs. Werner, and to "remember the poor and forget not" she had to manage her allowance with prudence. Unlike Dolly she had no private fortune; unlike Dolly she could not go to her husband and say she wanted money to give to that widow or this orphan, or some poor old man laid up with cold and rheumatism and the burden of years superadded.

Mr. Werner was in the world's eyes a prosperous man, but although his wife did her duty by, she did not grow to love, him. Mortomley, on the contrary, was a man who did not prosper as he might have done; and Dolly did not do her duty by him; but then she loved him, not perhaps as Leonora Trebasson might have done, but still according to her different nature wholly and increasingly.

Was there nothing to be put to the credit side of the last account, do you suppose? nothing of which the world with its befrilled and bejewelled wife failed to take notice.

Although, however, Mrs. Mortomley came to understand that in the opinion of his acquaintances her husband had made nothing of the opportunities offered him by fortune, she did not comprehend that what they thought was literally true.

She did not know that in business as in everything else it is simply impossible for a man to remain stationary. If he is not advancing he must be retrograding, if he is not increasing his returns his profits must be decreasing, if he is not extending his connexion he must be losing it, if he is not keeping ahead of the times he must be lagging behind the footsteps of progress.

Of all these matters Mrs. Mortomley was profoundly ignorant. From Mrs.

Werner she knew that Richard Halling's death had embarrassed her husband; but she attached little importance to this information, first because it came from a source she had always distrusted, and second because she had only the vaguest idea of what embarrassment meant in trade. Her notion, if she had any, was that her husband would have to put off some payment--as she sometimes deferred paying her milliner--that was all.

The first hint of things being at all "difficult" came to her in this wise.

She had not been very well. Perhaps, Miss Halling's friends, or Mr.

Dean's instructive remarks on the subject of his business had proved exhausting. Let that be as it may, one evening when a few guests were present she had just walked into the drawing-room after dinner when, without the slightest premonitory warning, she fell back in a dead faint.

She soon recovered, however, and not without a certain spice of malice laid her illness at the door of a scent which Miss Dean thought an appropriate odour to carry about with her everywhere--musk.

"I never can remain in a room with musk," said Dolly defiantly, "without feeling faint. Out of politeness to Miss Dean, I have latterly ceased speaking of a weakness she considers mere affectation, but now I suppose I may feel myself at liberty to do so."

And without further apology Dolly, still looking very white and terrified, for that inexplicable transition from consciousness to insensibility was a new sensation to her, walked through into the conservatory followed by Mrs. Werner and another lady who chanced to be present.

"I never could forgive the first Napoleon for divorcing Josephine until I read that she liked--musk," said Dolly leaning against the open door and looking out over the lawns, from which already came the sad perfume of the fallen Autumn leaves. "Fancy a man whose family traditions were interwoven with violets having that horrible odour greet him every time he entered her apartments."

"But it never made you faint before," remarked Mrs. Werner, ignoring Josephine's peculiarities, and reverting to her friend's sudden illness.

"I never had so large a dose at one time before," retorted Mrs.

Mortomley; "Miss Dean must have taken a bath of it I should think, this afternoon."

"Hush! dear," expostulated Mrs. Werner, and she put her arm round Dolly's waist and kissed her. Not even in the pages of old romance was there ever anything truer, purer, more perfect, than the love Lord Dassell's niece bore for Archibald Mortomley's wife.

Meantime, within the drawing-room, Miss Dean remarked to Antonia penitently,

"I really did think it was--not affectation exactly you know, but her way; I am so sorry."

Miss Halling raised her white shoulders with a significant gesture.

"She attributes it to the musk, but it was not really that, though I do think, remember, many perfumes are disagreeable to her. For instance, I have often known her order hyacinths, lily of the valley, lilac and syringa to be taken out of a room where she wished to sit, and I remember once when we were going to London together by train, her getting into another compartment at Stratford, merely because a fat old lady who was our fellow-traveller had thought fit to deluge her handkerchief with patchouli. But it was not the musk which made her faint. She takes too much out of herself. She is never still, she visits and talks enough for a dozen people. She was at a wedding yesterday morning, at a kettledrum in the afternoon, and then she came home and we all dined with the Morrisons. No constitution could endure such treatment," finished Miss Halling.

"The constitutions of fashionable ladies endure more than that," replied Miss Dean, who might perhaps have liked Antonia better than was the case had that young person not assumed the shape of a future sister-in-law.

"Yes," agreed the other, "but then they do nothing else, and Dolly--excuse me for calling her by that ridiculous name, but we have got into the habit of it--is never at rest from morning till night, she rises early and she goes to bed late, and she is here there and everywhere at all hours of the day."

This was true at any rate. It was precisely what a solemn old doctor told her when by Mr. Mortomley's request she sent next day for "some one to give her something."

He said she had better go out of town to some quiet place, and accordingly Dolly accompanied by Lenore and her maid left Homewood before the week was over.

It was when Mortomley was saying his last words of farewell that the first drop of rain indicating foul weather to come, fell on her upturned face.

"Dolly dear, you won't spend more money than you can help," said her husband in the tone of a man who would just have liked about as well to cut his throat as utter the words.

Dolly opened her eyes. It had been a childish habit of hers, and time failed to cure her of it.

"Do I spend too much?" she asked.

"Not half enough, if we had it to spend," was the answer; then he added hurriedly, "you are not vexed, you do not mind my speaking." At that moment, 'Take your seats. Now, sir, if you please,' was shouted out, and Dolly could only reply from her corner in the carriage,

"I will tell you when you come down," but there was not a shade on her face. Her look was bright as ever, while she put her hand in his.

A whole chapter of assurances could not have lightened her husband's heart one half so effectually.

Even if the words he had uttered bore no immediate fruit, what did it matter? The ice was broken. Hereafter he could talk to her again and explain his meaning more fully. All the way to the station he had felt miserable. He had treated her always like a child, and now when he was forced to tell her she must do without any fresh toy to which she took a fancy, he imagined himself little better than a brute.

But Dolly had been told and was not vexed. Why, oh! why, had he not spoken to her before!