Mr. Meadows was civil but firm. He told her Mr. Swanland had a right to everything about the place or that came into the place. He had a right to Mr. Mortomley's letters, and inclusively Mrs. Mortomley's. Mr.

Meadows did not think it was usual for a lady's letters to be opened; but Mr. Swanland had law on his side. He had also law on his side when he refused to pay the corn-chandler for oats sent in for the horses the day before the petition was presented. Mr. Meadows had no doubt the man thought himself hardly done by in the matter, but he must be regarded as a creditor like every one else.

Further, Mr. Meadows admitted--for Mrs. Mortomley having at length commenced to speak concerning her grievances, thought it too good an opportunity to be lost about airing them all--that there might be an appearance of injustice in setting down small country traders who had paid for their colours in advance as creditors, but Mr. Swanland could only deal with the estate as he found it, and if he sent on the goods ordered, he might have to make up the different amounts out of his own pocket. Moreover, after various indignant questions had been asked and answered in a similar manner, Mr. Meadows professed himself unable to imagine why Mrs. Mortomley had paid, and was paying for the maintenance of himself and the other two gentlemen in waiting. He was quite certain Mr. Swanland would not be able to satisfy the creditors if he repaid her the amount so disbursed.

"I assure you, ma'am," finished Mr. Meadows, "I have often felt that I should like to mention this matter to you, and would have done so, but that I feared to give offence. I know you imagine I have taken too much upon me since I came here; but indeed I have endeavoured to keep unpleasantnesses from you. In cases like these, if a lady and gentleman will remain in the house, as you and Mr. Mortomley have done, it is impossible they should find things agreeable. As I have often said to your servants, you ought to have left the morning after Mr. Swanland came down, and then you would have been out of the way of all this."

Having delivered himself of which speech, spoken quietly and respectfully, Mr. Meadows waited for any observation which it might please Mrs. Mortomley to make.

She made none. She stood perfectly silent for about a minute.

Then she said--"You can go," and quite satisfied with his morning's work, Mr. Meadows bowed and--went.

When he had closed the door after him, Mrs. Mortomley rang the bell.

"Esther," she began as the girl appeared, "directly you are at leisure begin to pack."

"You are going to leave then, ma'am?" said Esther interrogatively.

"Yes, at once. I do not know where we shall go," she added, understanding the unspoken question. "I must think, but upon one thing I am determined, and that is not to stop another night in this house until Mr. Mortomley is master of it again. And if he never is again--"

"Oh! ma'am," exclaimed the girl in protest, and then she burst into tears.

"Don't cry," commanded her mistress imperiously. "We shall all of us have plenty of time for crying hereafter; but there are other things to be done now. Pack your own clothes as well as mine. I will see to your master's, and tell Susan to put up hers also."

"Do you mean, ma'am, that you mean to leave the house with no one in it but those men. What will become of all the things?"

"I do not care what becomes of them," was the answer. "Now go and do as I have told you."

On her way upstairs Esther encountered Mr. Meadows, who about that house seemed indeed ubiquitous.

"She is a good deal cut up, ain't she?" he said confidentially.

"It is no business of yours whether she is or not," Esther retorted indignantly.

"Whether she is or not," mimicked Mr. Meadows, "you need not fly out at a fellow like that. It is none so pleasant for me being planted in such a beastly dull hole as this. The governor might as well have sent me to take charge of a church and churchyard. That job would have been about as lively as this precious Homewood place."

"Pity you and your governor are not in a churchyard together," said Esther, with her nose very much turned up, and the corners of her mouth very much drawn down, and her cheeks very red and her chin held very high. "If there wasn't another trade in the world, I would rather starve than take to yours."

Having fired which shot--one she knew would hit the bull's eye--Esther went swiftly on her way, while Mr. Meadows proceeded, the weather being still wet, to solace himself by smoking a pipe in the conservatory; the consequence being that when Mrs. Werner, a couple of hours later came to call upon Mrs. Mortomley, she found the drawing-room reeking of tobacco.

"They will bring their beer in here next," observed Dolly when she entered the apartment, and then she flung open the windows and commenced telling her story, for which Mrs. Werner was utterly unprepared.

She told it with dry eyes, with two red spots burning on her cheeks, with parched lips and a hard unnatural voice.

She did not break down when Mrs. Werner took her to her heart and cried over her as a mother might have done.

"Oh! Dolly," she sobbed. "Dolly, my poor darling--oh! the happy days we have spent together," and then she checked herself, and holding Dolly a little way off looked at her through a mist of tears.

"Why did I know nothing of this?" she went on. "Dolly, why did you not write and tell me? I thought everything was going to be straight and comfortable. I had not an idea you were in such trouble. Yes, you are right, you must leave Homewood. You have remained here too long already--where do you think of going?"

"I have not been able to think," Mrs. Mortomley answered. "Advise me, Lenny. I will do whatever you say is best."

"Will you really, darling, follow my advice for once?"

"Yes--really and truly--unless you wish us to go to Dassell. I should not like, I could not bear to take Archie there now."

"No, dear, I do not wish you to go to Dassell. We have taken a house at Brighton for a couple of months, and I am going down with the children to-morrow. Come home with me this afternoon, and we can all travel together. That is if Mr. Mortomley is fit to travel. If not you and he must stay for a few days in town till he is able to follow. That is settled, is not it Dolly? I have to pay a visit at Walthamstow and will return for you in less than an hour. You will come, dear."

Dolly did not answer verbally. She only put her arms round Mrs. Werner's neck and drawing down her face, kissed it in utter silence.

There was no need for much speech between those two women. Dolly had known Leonora Trebasson ever since she herself was born. They had grown up together. They had been friends always, and Mortomley's wife felt no more hesitation about accepting a kindness from Mrs. Werner in her need than Mrs. Werner would have experienced had it been needful for her in the halcyon days of old to ask for shelter and welcome at Homewood.

And as the visit was to be paid at Brighton, Dolly did not find the contemplation of Mr. Werner a drawback to the brightness of the picture.

Perfectly well she understood that when his wife and family were out of town, he never favoured them with much of his society.

Mr. Werner's god was business, and he did not care to absent himself for any lengthened period from the shrine at which he worshipped.

"I must just mention this to Archie," Mrs. Mortomley said at last.

"I will mention it to him," proposed Mrs. Werner. "We shall never get him to come for his own sake, but he will do so for yours."

"Thank you, Lenny," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "It does not signify for whose sake the move is made, so that it is made."

"Upon second thoughts," observed Mrs. Werner, "I shall not go on to Walthamstow to-day. I will stay and carry you off with me. You can give me some luncheon and let the horses have a feed, and that will be a far pleasanter arrangement in every way."

Dolly laughed and summoned Esther. "Mrs. Werner will lunch here," she said; "and find Mr. Meadows and send him to me."

"What do you want with that creature," asked her friend, and Dolly answered, "You shall hear."

Mr. Meadows entered the room and bowed solemnly to its occupants.

"You wanted me, ma'am," he said, standing just inside the doorway and addressing Mrs. Mortomley.

"Yes. I wished to know if you think Mr. Swanland can answer any questions that my husband's creditors may put to him, if Mrs. Werner's horses have a feed of corn--because if not, I must ask her coachman to put up at the public-house."

Mr. Meadows turned white with rage at this cool question and the sneer which accompanied it.

"That woman is a fiend," he thought, "and will trouble some of our people yet, and serve them right too;" but he answered quietly enough,

"I am certain, madam, that Mr. Swanland would wish every consideration to be paid to you and your friends, and I can take it upon myself to tell this lady's coachman to put up his horses here."

"You are very good," remarked Dolly. She could not have said, "Thank you," had the salvation of Homewood depended on her uttering the words.

"Has it come to that?" asked Mrs. Werner as Mr. Meadows retired, and Mrs. Mortomley answered--