That same evening Mr. Meadows received a note from his employer containing various directions and instructions. After the signature came a postscript, "How does it happen _Mrs._ Mortomley's letters have not been forwarded to me? See to this _at once_, and never let me have to complain of such negligence again."

For with all the flocks and herds of the Mortomley Estate held in his hand, Mr. Swanland's soul sickened, because of that two pounds four shillings he could never now hope to liquidate.

CHAPTER XI.

MRS. MORTOMLEY'S FORTUNE.

Mr. Leigh, Mortomley's solicitor, was all that in an early chapter of this story Mr. Asherill stated him to be, and perhaps a little more.

He was honest and honourable, a kind father, a devoted husband, an affectionate son, and a staunch friend, but he was human, and being human his reception of Mrs. Mortomley proved cool and formal.

No one knew more of Mortomley's estate than he--not even Mortomley himself. His father had managed the legal affairs of Mortomley's father, and he personally had been _au fait_ with every in and out of the son's hopes and disappointments, successes and failures, gains and losses, liabilities and expectations, until the death of Richard Halling.

At that time, some outspoken advice was given on the one side, which caused a certain amount of vexation on the other; and although Mr. Leigh had never ceased to act as the colour-maker's solicitor, still from the day that grievous connection--so madly continued with the General Chemical Company began--he knew so little of the actual position of his former friend, that when Mortomley walked into his office, out of which he was subsequently dragged by a clerk from St. Vedast Wharf, and stated it was absolutely necessary for him to lay the state of his affairs before his creditors, the lawyer stared at him aghast.

Then after that patched up truce with fate, the terms of which were evolved out of the workings of Mr. Forde's ingenuity, things went on as before, and he had no more idea his client was on the verge of bankruptcy, until he saw that paragraph previously mentioned in the 'Times,' than he had of going into the 'Gazette' himself.

Well might Mr. Leigh consider he had been hardly done by. At least he was an honest man, and yet Mr. Mortomley evidently preferred that a black sheep should manage his affairs.

Faithfully, through every chance and change of life, he had dealt by his client; and now when he really might have made some amount of money worth having out of his estate, that client pitched him over.

And finally, as if all these injuries were not enough, here was Mrs.

Mortomley herself, a woman he had never taken to or understood, sitting in his office, dressed out as if liquidation by arrangement meant succession to an earldom and a hundred thousand a year.

He sat and looked at her, not speculatively, as Mr. Asherill had done, but disapprovingly.

Mr. Leigh entertained some old-fashioned ideas, and one of these happened to be that a woman who, at such a juncture, could think of her dress, was not likely to be of much assistance when the evil days arrived in which pence should take the place of pounds,--and stuffs, of silks and satins.

Nor did he, of course, incline more favourably to Mortomley's wife, when she explained how small a share her husband had in the selection of Mr.

Benning.

If Mortomley had not been ungrateful, she had proved herself so little better than a simpleton, that he could not find an excuse for her folly, in her ignorance.

All this made it hard for Dolly to tell her tale; indeed for ever Mr.

Leigh had only a hazy idea that, in the event of his having happened to be in town instead of absent from it, things might have turned out differently.

A week only had elapsed since Mrs. Mortomley took her early walk to seek that vague advice and assistance, which last is never given, which first is always utterly useless; but so many events had crowded themselves into the space of eight days, that the incident slipped out of the sequence of her story, and was only mentioned accidently by her.

Indeed, she was so full of the horrible idea suggested by the interview at Salisbury House that she began at the end of her narrative, instead of the beginning. She asked questions, and failed to answer questions which were put to her.

"What was a settlement--had any been made--was it true, as Mr. Benning said, that if there were no settlement, everything went to the creditors. If so, what was to become of her husband, Lenore, and herself?"

Mr. Leigh replied to her last inquiry first.

"There will be an allowance made out of the estate, of course," he said.

"Are you certain," she persisted; "for if they can avoid doing so, I am sure we shall not have a penny."

Whereupon, Mr. Leigh read her a mild lecture warning her of the danger of being prejudiced, and making enemies instead of friends. He gave her to understand that Mr. Swanland was a member of a most respectable profession, and that she had not the smallest reason to suppose he was inimical to her husband, or disposed to act in other than the kindest and most honourable manner.

With an impatient gesture Mrs. Mortomley averted her head.

"I shall never be able to make any one comprehend my meaning," she said wearily, "until events have verified my forebodings. It seems of no use your talking to me, Mr. Leigh, or my talking to you, for you think me foolish and prejudiced, and I think you know just about as much of what liquidation by arrangement really is as I did a week ago."

"In that case--" he began coldly.

"You think I ought to say good morning, and refrain from wasting your valuable time," she interrupted.

"My dear Mrs. Mortomley," he said gently, for he saw that her eyes were full of tears, and that her trouble was very genuine, "pray compose yourself, and try to look calmly at your situation. You are frightening yourself with a bugbear of your own creation, I assure you. The new Bankruptcy Act was framed for the express purpose of relieving honest debtors from many hardships to which they were formerly exposed, and to assist creditors to obtain their money by a cheaper and more simple mode than was practicable previously. You cannot suppose a trustee has the power to act contrary to law, and the law never contemplated beggaring a man merely because he chanced to be unfortunate. You may make your mind quite easy about money matters. I do not say you will be able to have the luxuries you have hitherto enjoyed;" here he made a slight stop, as if to emphasise the fact on her comprehension, "but you will have everything needful for your position. And with respect to your own fortune, which I am afraid cannot be saved, there are two sides to everything, and there are two sides to this. As a lawyer of course I think every husband ought to secure the pecuniary future of his wife and family, but really my unprofessional opinion is that settlements which place a woman in a position of affluence, and consequently provide a handsome income for a man, no matter how reckless or improvident he has been, can scarcely be defended on any ground of right or reason. Do you follow my meaning?"

She looked up at him as he made this inquiry, and answered,

"Do not think me rude. I cannot give my mind to what you are saying.

Possibly you are right. I heard your words, and I shall remember them sufficiently, I have no doubt, to be able to argue the matter out by myself at some future time--if--if we ever get into smooth water again; but I cannot think of anything but ourselves now, I cannot. While you are speaking my thoughts run back to Homewood, and I wonder what has happened there, and whether, if I told this great trouble to Archie, it would kill him outright. Through everything, I know, he has calculated on that money for me and Lenore. If he had not been satisfied, if he had ever doubted my right to it for a moment, do you suppose he would have run such a risk? Do you think he would have failed to make any necessary arrangement to keep us beyond the possibility of want?"

"I am certain he would if he could have foreseen a time like this," the lawyer answered. "But you must remember men do not anticipate bankruptcy as a rule. When they do, it is far too late to talk of settlements. If every one were prudent and foreseeing, misfortunes such as these could not occur; but bankruptcy is not a pleasant eventuality for a person to contemplate, though it is undoubtedly true that every business man ought to order his course just as if he expected to go into the 'Gazette'

within a week."

"We hear something like that every Sunday about living as if we were dying, don't we, Mr. Leigh?" she asked, with a little gasping sob, "but we none of us practise what we are told. I wonder now," Dolly added, addressing no one in particular, but speaking her thoughts out loud, "whether the clergy are right after all, whether, if we all go on as we are going, we shall, men and women alike, prove utter bankrupts at the Judgment-day. An immortality of insolvency is not a pleasant future to contemplate; but it may be true. I dare say it will be perfectly true for some of us."

Mr. Leigh was eminently a safe man--safe in morals, religion, politics, and money matters, and nothing offended his ideas more than wild utterances and random talk, for which reason Mrs. Mortomley's last sentence proved more distasteful than even her candidly expressed doubt as to his thorough acquaintance with the new Bankruptcy Act.

But he was kind, and if his visitor had occasionally a curious and unpleasant way of communicating her ideas, he could see underlying all external eccentricities that she was in fearful trouble, not because she dreaded being unable to renew her laces and replace her silks--truth being, Dolly had never descended even mentally to such details--but because she had taken a phantom to nurse and reared it into a giant.

Some one, it was necessary, should adopt measures to destroy the giant, he decided, ere it destroyed her.

"Mrs. Mortomley," he began, "you ought to get out of town for a short time--"

"And leave my husband?"

"No, take him with you."

She shook her head. "You do not know how ill he is. No one knows how ill he is but me, not even the doctors."

"He would get stronger if he were away, and he must be strong before the meeting of creditors. Ask the doctors, and be guided by their advice.

Now let me entreat of you to be influenced by what they may say."

"If it were possible to move him it might be better," she said thoughtfully, "but he could not go without me, and I suppose I ought to be at Homewood."

"Why, are Miss Halling and her brother and all those men you told me about not sufficient to take care of the place?" asked Mr. Leigh.

She opened her lips to tell him that Rupert and Antonia had left, but closed them again, feeling ashamed to say how utterly desolate she and her husband were in their extremity.

"I think I ought to stay," she remarked at last.