True, Mr. Kleinwort was not in England or likely to return to it, and Mr. Forde had nothing now to do with the General Chemical Company, Limited, which had indeed itself ceased to exist, having been purchased by Hewitt and Date for a sum which paid the original shareholders about a sovereign in the twenty-five pound share.

The directors had made a gallant fight in order to continue the business, but their courage proved useless. The next morning after that night when Lord Darsham told Williams to show Mr. Forde the door, the manager had risen with the firm intention of handing in his resignation that forenoon, but on the way to St. Vedast Wharf he met Mr. Gibbons.

"Bad business that about Werner," said that gentleman.

"It's a bad business for me," answered Mr. Forde lugubriously; "I shall have to resign to-day, and what is to become of me and those poor creatures at home God alone knows."

"Nonsense!" retorted Mr. Gibbons; "why should you resign unless you have some consideration given you for doing so? Put a bold front on the matter, and say you did the best for the directors and the shareholders, and you are ready to answer any questions that may be put. They will give you a cool two hundred to walk out. That is what I should do if I were in your place."

And that was precisely what Mr. Forde did; the result being that he got not only two hundred but three hundred pounds given out of the directors' own pockets, if he would resign at once and follow his friend Kleinwort to South America.

And so that chapter in City history ended, with only this addendum, Mr.

Forde never went to South America, though the directors said and believed he did.

With the three hundred pounds he travelled as far as Liverpool, where he set up in business with his correspondent Tom, and where people hear very little indeed about his wife and children, who live in an extremely small house situate at Everton.

_Sic transit gloria mundi_, the ex-manager might well exclaim, did he understand the meaning of that phrase, while pacing the pavement of those dreary streets to and from his humble habitation, when he contrasts the actual present with the once possible future himself had conceived.

Mr. Forde's departure from London caused another absentee; and as the opposition colour maker had by this time gone into liquidation, and would have cheerfully given his vote for Mortomley's immediate discharge had any one offered him five pounds, Mr. Swanland might certainly have helped the bankrupt to freedom had he chosen to do so. But Mr. Swanland did not choose to do so, and Mr. Douglas was afraid to tell Dolly this.

"It will come in time," she said calmly, "or if it never does, some other way will open for my husband."

"Yes," remarked her new friend, "I can promise that, but you must promise in return to go down to my little place in Devonshire, and try to get well again. Smiles says, change of air may do wonders for you."

Smiles was an eminent doctor, the kind old man had feed liberally to come to Wood Cottage and pass his opinion upon Mrs. Mortomley's state, and Mr. Smiles had said pleasant things, and deceived every one, save Dolly, as to her real condition.

Nevertheless, Dolly imagining the evil hour might be deferred, promised and fulfilled. She went into Devonshire, and with all her might tried to get well again.

The "little place" to which Mr. Douglas referred so carelessly, was as sweet a cottage ornee as eye ever rested on; and to say that Dolly revelled in the place and the peace and the scenery, is scarcely to convey an idea of the amount of happiness she contrived to extract for herself out of sea, and land, and sky.

There was but one cloud hovering over her, one worldly affair perplexing her, but that affair she meant to bequeath to Leonora Werner. Through Lord Darsham's influence and that of Mr. Douglas combined, she knew they would, with the facts she had jotted down, satisfy a second meeting of creditors that if Mortomley's estate in liquidation yielded nothing in the pound, no blame could be attached to Mortomley or Mortomley's wife; and that consequently, according even to the wording of that iniquitous Act of 1869, the bankrupt was entitled to his discharge.

Between herself and her husband there lay no secret. _She had told him._ One quiet Sunday evening she said simply, "It is best you should know, dear." Her own hand dealt the inevitable blow. It had to be given, and with the subtle sympathy of old she comprehended that if dealt by her, he would feel the keen agony of the stroke less at the time, less in the dreary hereafter.

"I shall stay as long as I can, Archie," she added; that was all the hope she was able to give him, and she gave it. She loved sitting on the beach alone; that is, as regarded her own friends and family, for she liked to talk with children and grown-up people who, unknowing of her danger and attracted merely by her delicate appearance, made acquaintance readily with the "sick lady."

Dolly liked to say she was better, and see no sad wistful look follow her answer.

Amongst the few visitors to that remote place was a lady with whom Mrs.

Mortomley delighted each day to exchange a few words. She was old and prim, and fond of religious conversation, and a trifle didactic; but Dolly felt she was true, and Dolly had always liked people who were genuine.

Perhaps that was the reason she was so deeply affected when Lang came all the way from London to see her and say "Good-bye." He was to live in the Hertfordshire cottage and work the colour manufactory for his own benefit, and his old master had given him a few specialities, and he would have been happy but for Mrs. Mortomley's illness and the recollection of the gross perfidy of Harte and Mayfield, who had not merely sent one of their own clerks to take service with Mortomley to discover his secrets, but seduced him (Lang) away with offers of higher wages, and then turned him adrift the moment their purpose was served.

"But, thank God!" said Lang fervently, "they never could make the yellow--that secret is dark enough still. I shall always believe it was some blackguard from their place frightened you that morning. I beg pardon, you were not frightened, though any other lady would have been."

And then they had much more talk, which I have not space to repeat, even if I thought it could prove interesting, and she sent the man away with her photograph carefully placed in a new pocket-book, in anticipation of becoming his own employer.

"Hang it up in some place for the children to see," said Dolly; and it does hang up now, duly framed and glazed, where not merely the children, but all visitors can behold the likeness of Mortomley's faithful wife, which is a digression from the elderly lady with white sausage-like curls, who happened to be Mrs. Asherill.

One day Dolly was sitting on the beach as usual, when she beheld her nameless friend walking towards her arm-in-arm with Mr. Asherill.

Then Dolly, instinctively guessing the lady with whom she had passed a few pleasant half hours was the wife of that detested man, kept her eyes so fastened on the book lying in her lap that Mr. Asherill had a chance of passing by in silence, of which chance he availed himself.

Not the next morning, which was Sunday, but the next but one, Mrs.

Asherill called at the cottage and asked to see Mrs. Mortomley, whom she found sitting in an easy-chair near the window.

"I was not well enough to go to the beach to-day," said Dolly, holding out her hand. "How good of you to come here!"

"I could not rest without coming," was the reply. "It seems dreadful that two people like you and my husband should so misunderstand each other, as I am afraid is the case."

"Do we misunderstand each other?" asked Mrs. Mortomley. "Sit down, Mrs.

Asherill, and imagine I am little Peterkin, and tell me 'what they killed each other for.'"

"I do not know exactly what you mean, my dear," remarked the elder woman, "but I have felt miserable ever since Saturday. My husband spoke about you bitterly as I have never heard him speak about any one before, and told me to walk in some other direction so that I might not have to speak to you again."

"And what did you tell him?" asked Dolly cheerfully.

"Oh! I made no reply. I meant to call and ask you when and why you had quarrelled, as I should so much like you and my dear, good, kind husband to be friends."

"Come," thought Dolly, "the man has one good point, he is kind to a woman neither young nor handsome; but perhaps she has money."

Which conjecture was true; but, on the other hand, he had been kind and tender to a woman without a sixpence--always ailing, always complaining, to whom he gave the best cup of tea--in those days of bitter griping poverty mentioned far, far back in this story.

"Till Saturday I did not know who you were," said Mrs. Mortomley, after a pause, "and I suppose you did not know who I was. In fact, neither of us was aware we ought to have waged war when we met, instead of sitting peacefully together talking on all sorts of topics. Now we have found out that you are you and that I am I. What are we to do? I am afraid we cannot remain good friends."

"But my husband could not avert your misfortunes. He told me distinctly he refused to undertake the management of Mr. Mortomley's affairs, and that it was quite against his wish Mr. Swanland meddled in the matter."

Dolly sighed wearily.

"I am afraid Mr. Asherill was right," she said, "and that you had better not have come here to-day. I do not wish to speak hardly of any man now, least of all hardly of any man to his wife, but still, I cannot help saying I think we have bitter cause to hate the very names of Asherill and Swanland."

"That I am sure you have not," answered Mrs. Asherill--"at least, not that of my husband. I must tell you something, just to show how utterly you have misjudged him. Do you remember a particularly wet Saturday in September, 18--?"

"Perfectly," said Mrs. Mortomley. "I shall never forget it."

"Nor I, for that day I heard of the death of an old and very dear friend--about the last friend left--whom I had known since girlhood.

That evening Mr. Asherill returned home much later than usual, and very much depressed. After dinner he explained to me that he was much concerned about Mr. Mortomley, whose affairs had fallen into embarrassment, and he proposed that we should send fifty pounds of poor Rosa's legacy as an anonymous present to his wife. Now, my dear, no doubt you never guessed from whom that little offering came?"

"I certainly never did, and for a sufficient reason," was the reply, "It never reached me."

"Ah! you forget," said Mrs. Asherill; "no doubt you had enough on your mind at that time to cause you to forget even more important matters than our poor gift--for it was mine as well as his; but I can recall the circumstance to your recollection; you will remember all about it, when I say you acknowledged the amount, with grateful thanks, in the 'Daily News.'"

"I never did," persisted Dolly; "such an occurrence could not have slipped my memory. I never received that money--never acknowledged having received it. I do recollect--" she was proceeding, when she stopped suddenly.

In a moment she understood the position, but she was not mean enough to take advantage of the opportunity thus presented. She could not tell Mrs. Asherill the true version of the affair; she could not ring the bell and bid Esther bring her dressing-case, and produce from the place where it had lain so long, John Jones's letter enclosing two pounds ten.

"There has been some great mistake about this matter, Mrs. Asherill,"

she said after a pause. "I never received that fifty pounds; and I should like to have an opportunity of speaking to Mr. Asherill on the subject. Ask him to call here next Saturday. Tell him I shall take it as a great kindness if he will favour me with a few minutes'