"Humph!" ejaculated Mr. Witney. He did not care to say the loss if total would mean half dividend or none at all, and yet still he was too much exercised in spirit to be able to remain silent under the grievance. "One does not like to lose even a comparatively small sum," he observed at length.

"That is quite true," agreed Mr. Asherill, casting about in his own mind to find the real reason why Forde, Werner, and Kleinwort had all been so desirous to keep Mortomley on his feet.

According to Mr. Witney, the state of whose feelings Mr. Asherill read like a book, the colour-maker did not owe the Company such an amount as to warrant the fuss made over and the anxiety exhibited about his affairs.

"What is your opinion on the subject of dividend?" asked Mr. Witney after a pause.

"Well, I can scarcely be said to have an opinion," was the reply. "I have nothing to do with the matter. My young partner has it all in his own hands. I did not wish our firm to undertake the management of the affair."

"Why?" inquired Mr. Witney.

"I really could scarcely tell you why," answered Mr. Asherill, "except that I have my whims and fancies, as some people would call them. Mortomley's father was a friend of mine, and although a member of the Church of England, a thorough Christian. He was, I assure you," continued Mr. Asherill, as his companion shook his head in a manner which might either have expressed disbelief or a desire to imply that wonders would never cease. "He gave me a helping hand once, when help meant more than it usually does" ('more than you would have given your brother,' added Mr. Asherill mentally) "and I did not like the notion of winding up the son. One never knows how sadly these things may end, and of course a trustee ought to have no personal feeling towards a bankrupt. He ought to be as impartial as justice herself. Mr. Swanland, however, has got the management of the estate, which from what I hear is a good estate, a very good estate indeed," finished Mr. Asherill unctuously, as though he were saying grace before partaking of a plenteous and well-served dinner.

"You think there will be a good dividend then?" suggested Mr. Witney.

"Well, I did hear," was the cautious answer, "some talk of twenty shillings in the pound, but that I do not credit. The expenses, go to work as we may, must be considerable, and then things may not fetch the prices expected; and, further, poor Mortomley is ill, and that is always a drawback; but if you get fifteen shillings, come now, you would not grumble then?"

"No, certainly; but we should like to see twenty," said Mr. Witney. "I will call round and have a talk with Mr. Swanland on the subject."

"Do," said Mr. Asherill cordially. "He will be able to tell you all about it, much better than I," and the two men having by this time arrived at Waterloo, they shook hands and blessed one another and proceeded to their respective trains, Mr. Asherill thinking as he went, "You do not know any more than I why your manager wanted this affair kept quiet, but you will know to your cost some day, or I am greatly mistaken."

After all, it is never the straws which know so well the way the wind is blowing as those who see them swept along with the gale.

"I give the Chemical Company another year," went on Mr. Asherill, mentally continuing the subject. "That I fancy will be about long enough for them."

And then he fell to considering whether he should like to have the winding up of the St. Vedast Wharf estate, and decided he should not, for the simple reason that he did not think there would be much estate left to wind up.

There is often a touching directness about the secret motives of professing Christians. Perhaps this may be the reason why carnal and unconverted creatures love so little those who love themselves and worldly prosperity so much.

CHAPTER X.

Concerning misfortune, Kleinwort's theory may be accepted as correct. It is rarely the expected rain-fall, rarely the anticipated storm, which beats down the hopes of a man's life, destroys all the fair prospect of his future. In nine cases out of ten the tempest creeps out of some totally unlooked-for quarter; and behold ere one can quite understand that the morning sunshine is overcast, or the mid-day glory clouded, the heavens are opened, and out of them proceed lightnings and thunder and blinding tempests which blast every bud and flower and fruit a man has looked on with hope and pride, before he can realise the nature of the misfortune that has fallen upon him.

Now something of this kind occurred at Homewood, and it assumed the shape first of a most polite note from Mr. Swanland, asking Mrs. Mortomley if she could oblige him by calling at his office at eleven o'clock on the next morning, Saturday, as he was unable to go to Homewood, and there were two or three matters about which it was necessary for him to see her, and next of the following:

"St. Swithin's Lane, E.C.
"September 29th, 187—.

"Mrs. Mortomley,
"Homewood.

"Madam,

"A Mr. Benning has been with us to make some inquiries concerning the moneys bequeathed to you by Miss Dollabella Chippendale, of which our Mr. Daniells is trustee. In Mr. Daniells' absence we have deferred answer ing these inquiries, but we think it might be advisable for you to request your solicitor to call upon us with reference to this matter, Mr. Benning, as we understand, being only engaged about some liquidation affair in which Mr. Mortomley is concerned.

"Your obedient Servants,
"Herson, Daniells, and Co."

Dolly sat and pondered over these letters as she had sat and pondered over the letter signed John Jones, mentioned in a very early chapter.

That epistle she had regarded in the light of a gratuitous piece of impertinence emanating either from Mr. Kleinwort or Mr. Forde, and under this impression she worded the advertisement which so annoyed Mr. Asherill; but when the last post of the next day brought those two missives, she began to wonder whether John Jones might not really have been some humble friend gifted with greater prescience than she possessed, who, unknowing of the remnant of her quarter's income she still possessed, might imagine her so short of money that even two pounds four shillings might prove acceptable.

Moved by some incomprehensible impulse, she, the most careless of created beings, searched for that letter and locked it away in her dressing-case.

There was no Rupert to talk to now. Twice since his departure he had appeared at Homewood, the first time to say Antonia was busy purchasing her trousseau, and that old Dean had acted most generously in the matter of money, on the next occasion to ask Dolly not to expect to see him before Monday, as he was obliged to go down to Bath; the real truth being Rupert had thought the Homewood matter over, and decided that until Antonia had become Mrs. Dean, the less he saw of that place the better.

On the occasion of his first visit, Turner, the man already mentioned as having incited Esther to remove those vases and statuettes which seemed to them both desirable possessions, stopped him on his way to the gate.

"You and Mr. Lang, sir, saw a man the other morning looking over the fence, I believe?"

Rupert nodded assent.

"And you asked Lang who he was, and Lang could not tell you?"

"Yes," agreed Mr. Halling.

"Well, I know, sir; he's a detective, and there are more of them about."

Rupert stepped back as if he had received a blow, he stepped back so far he was brought up by a tree of arbor vitæ, out of which he emerged dripping with wet.

"Detectives?" he repeated, taking off his hat and smoothing it mechanically. "What can they want here?"

"If I am not greatly out in my calculation, sir, there are those in this business who would cheerfully give a hundred pounds to catch Mr. Mortomley tripping, or to be able to prove he ever did trip."

"Mr. Mortomley may safely defy them then," said Rupert, but he did not turn back and warn Dolly there were spies round and about watching the old familiar place.

Mr. Turner stood contemplating his retreating figure.

"A fine young man," he thought, "but cut out and made up after the world's pattern. And so he won't tell her. Well, then, I will; for a lady like Mrs. Mortomley ought not to be kept in the dark. And her husband too ill to look after aught for himself," added Mr. Turner, who in truth was with the Mortomleys heart and soul, so far as the exigencies of his delightful profession allowed him to have sympathy for any one beyond the "one" who had put him in possession.

So he told Esther, who told her mistress, who was naturally incredulous of, and indignant at, Turner's statement.

"Detectives!" she repeated scornfully. "Does the man suppose we are thieves or murderers?"

"No, ma'am, but I—I do really think he is sorry for you—and—the master."

Esther was brushing Mrs. Mortomley's hair, as she uttered this sentence slowly, and with considerable hesitation.

In the glass she could see reflected her mistress's downcast face—the sudden compression of her lips—the quiver about her mouth.

They had sunk very low Dolly felt, when even the bailiffs pitied them!

That was her first thought. Her next was, that in his way Turner was trying to do his best for her and her husband, but she could not trust herself to speak upon the subject, so she refrained from answering, and the brushing proceeded in silence.

Next morning Esther detected some white hairs amongst the brown. Of late this had been a matter of no rare occurrence.

"What does it signify?" Mrs. Mortomley exclaimed. "If these men stay here much longer my hair will be white as snow. Oh! I wish!—I wish—I wish!" she added passionately, "we had a house to ourselves once again. If it were the humblest cottage in England in which I could shut the door and feel we were alone, I should thank God for his mercy—"

"It cannot be for long, ma'am, Turner says—" Esther was beginning, when Mrs. Mortomley faced round upon her.

"If you mention that man's name again, I will give you notice."

Which certainly most servants so situated would have taken without further ceremony on the spot.

If Mrs. Mortomley had possessed the wisdom of the serpent, she would not have arrayed herself in the gorgeous attire she selected as especially suitable for a visit to Mr. Swanland's offices; but Dolly could not yet realize the fact that her husband was bankrupt, that a trustee ruled at Homewood, that the last man in possession was his lord-lieutenant, that the men were no longer Mortomley's men, but belonged to Mr. Swanland, as did the works and everything else, themselves scarcely excepted, about the place.

So, arrayed like the Queen of Sheba, Dolly started away on foot to catch the train from Leytonstone which should enable her to reach Mr. Swanland's office by eleven.

There were horses in the stable, but Mrs. Mortomley forbade them being harnessed for her benefit.

"It was a fine morning and she preferred walking," she said; though Mr. Meadows with some effusion of manner assured her, if she wished, he would have the carriage brought round directly, and he continued to press his offer till she cut him short by saying,

"As it seems I can no longer order my carriage for myself, I shall walk. You have taken very good care, Mr. Meadows, during the course of the last two days to let me know I am not mistress here or my husband master. Kindly stand aside and let me pass. I have to see your employer at eleven o'clock."

And she opened the gate for herself, and walked out into the road as if not Homewood alone but all the stately homes of England had belonged to her of right; walked out to hear the worst which could befall.

It was a splendid morning. After raining for a whole week with scarcely a moment's intermission, the weather that day seemed to have made up its mind to turn over a new leaf and to be bright for evermore.

Athwart all the forest glades sunbeams fell in golden bars on the vivid turf; the trees were still in full leaf, the songs of birds sounded in Dolly's ears; all nature seemed careless and happy and prodigal; and as the woman upon whom such trouble had fallen so suddenly looked first on this side and on that, she thanked God involuntarily for the beauty of this beautiful world, and then exclaimed almost aloud,

"And there must be some way into the sunshine for us, if I could only see which turning to take."

There was, my dear, and you had taken the turning. All unconsciously your feet were already treading a path leading into the sunshine—through dreary wastes it is true—along places stony and thorny; across wilds hard to traverse, but still a path conducting to the sunshine, out of the blind, maddening, perplexing darkness, into light.

It has always been a puzzle to me why the newest offices in London are those which seem most frequently under the hand of the house decorator.

If you happen to have an account at an old banking establishment, to have entrusted your affairs to the management of an old-fashioned solicitor, or to be acquainted with a broker who is one of a firm known in the City for years, you may call upon each and all of them, season after season, without fearing to encounter that villainous smell of paint which meet those who do business with new people at every turn, on every landing.

As for Salisbury House, painters, white-washers, paper-hangers, and varnishers pervaded it with a perpetual presence.

A man given to punning once suggested the reason for this was—the dreadful cases taken in there—but Mr. Asherill, to whom the remark was made, would not see the intended joke, and observed it might be well for some people, who did not possess a saving faith, if men were able to perform a similar cleansing operation on their souls.

On the occasion of Mrs. Mortomley's first visit to Salisbury House, Mr. Swanland's own office was undergoing a course of purification, and he was therefore compelled to receive her in the room where a week previously Messrs. Kleinwort and Werner had been admitted to an audience with the senior partner.

In acknowledgment of his own comparatively subordinate standing in the firm, Mr. Swanland's papers were ranged upon a table covered with green baize, drawn close beside the window, while Mr. Asherill maintained his position at the ponderous mass of mahogany and morocco leather which occupied the centre of the room.

When Mrs. Mortomley entered, Mr. Asherill rose, and, with a profound bow and studied courtesy of manner, handed her a chair.

Mr. Swanland availed himself of this opportunity of feebly indicating his senior as "my partner;" then, while Mr. Benning who was present advanced to shake hands, Mr. Asherill resumed his seat and his occupation with an air which said plainly to all who cared to understand,

"Now don't interrupt me or trouble me about your trumpery business. Here am I with the whole future of mercantile London on my shoulders, and it is absurd to expect me to give the smallest attention to this ridiculously poor affair."

At intervals he touched his office bell, and sent the clerk who appeared in answer, to Mr. So-and-So, to know about such and such an affair; or had a book big enough to have contained lengthy biographies of all the Lord Mayors of London from the time of Fitz Alwyn downwards brought in, from which he made a feint of extracting some useful information; but really all the time he was watching Mrs. Mortomley.

Without appearing to do so, he took her in from the enormous rolls and plaits on the very summit of which her bonnet was perched to the high-heeled boots, the tops of which reached high above her ankles. There was not a flower or ruche or frill or furbelow or bow about her dress of which he did not make a mental inventory. He noted the lace on her mantle, and the fit and colour of her gloves; and while he thus noticed her face, dress, manner, and tried to piece a consistent whole out of the woman's appearance, her position, and Kleinwort's account of her, the talk went on smoothly and easily enough at first.

"It will be necessary for us, Mrs. Mortomley, to know something about your own money in the event of any questions being asked at the meeting of creditors," began Mr. Swanland, after he had asked after Mr. Mortomley and apologised for bringing her to town. "It was left to you by a relation, I believe?"

"No," Dolly explained, "not a relation exactly. By my godmother, Miss Chippendale."

"Before or after your marriage?"

"You need not trouble Mrs. Mortomley with all those questions," Mr. Benning here interrupted. "I have been to Doctors' Commons and ascertained all the particulars."

Dolly turned and looked at him as he said this; turned sharply and suddenly, and then for the first time Mr. Asherill decided she was not a person whom it might be quite safe to offend.

Already he saw that there was secret war between her and Mr. Benning; already he understood she scented danger afar off, and was standing at bay waiting for its coming.

"I am sure," said Mr. Swanland in his smoothest tone, with his blandest and falsest smile, "I do not want to trouble Mrs. Mortomley unnecessarily about anything; but it is for the interest of all concerned that we should know at first precisely how we are placed. How we are placed," repeated Mr. Swanland with some self-satisfaction at the neatness of his sentence.

"That is just what I want to know," agreed Dolly, "though it seems to me we could scarcely be in a more miserable position than is the case at present."

At this juncture Mr. Asherill cleared his throat vehemently. Mr. Benning seated with his legs stretched out crossed one foot over the other and contemplated the polish on his boots while Mr. Swanland remarked, "Ladies are always so hasty. They jump at conclusions so rapidly, and I must say, if you will forgive me, Mrs. Mortomley, frequently so erroneously."

"You mean, I suppose, that we may find ourselves in a more miserable position still?" said Dolly flushing a little. "If that be your meaning, let me know at once whether this fresh trouble refers to my money."

"I assure you—" began Mr. Swanland.

But she interrupted him by a quick impatient gesture.

"Why did you ask me to come here this morning? What is it you wish to be told that Mr. Benning cannot tell you better than I?"

Mr. Asherill laid down his pen and began to turn over the leaves of his diary softly and with a great show of interest. Mr. Benning lifted his eyes from his boots to stare at Mrs. Mortomley, while Mr. Swanland looking across at him asked,

"Was there anything to that effect in the will?"

"No. If you had given me five minutes' interview, as I asked, I could have told you there was not."

"And Herson?"

"Knows nothing, or will know nothing, except the fact that money has been withdrawn for business purposes, and that Daniells refused to allow any more to be used, which all tallies with Forde's statements."

"Mrs. Mortomley," asked Mr. Swanland, "you can save us a vast amount of trouble if you will kindly inform us whether there has been any settlement made upon you of this money."

"I do not know," she answered. "I suppose so; however, the money is mine, it was left to me."

"Of course, of course, we understand all that," said Mr. Swanland. "What I want you to tell me is whether Mr. Mortomley ever made any settlement of this money on you."

"No. It did not come from any of his relations or friends; it was bequeathed to me as I have already stated by—"

"She does not know," suggested Mr. Swanland, speaking across Dolly to Mr. Benning.

"No; but I think we may draw our own conclusions. Was the subject of settlements ever discussed between you and your husband?" he inquired, turning to Mrs. Mortomley.

"No; certainly not. We never had separate purses, we never could have. What was his was mine, and what is mine shall of course always be his."

"We do not mean to suggest that you and Mr. Mortomley ever were or ever will be on other than the most affectionate terms," retorted Mr. Benning with a slight sneer.

"Fortunately the domestic happiness or unhappiness of our clients is not a matter we are called upon to investigate," said Mr. Swanland with a light laugh. "Eh, Asherill?"

Mr. Asherill looked up with an expression of face which implied he had come up from the profoundest depths of thought to hearken to his partner's babble.

"No, no, no," he agreed hastily. "Matrimony is an account out of which it would take wiser heads than ours to make a fair balance-sheet," and he was resuming his occupation, when Mrs. Mortomley addressed him.

"Sir," she said, his white hair and large head inspiring her with a momentary confidence in his integrity and straightforwardness, "you look like a gentleman who might have daughters of your own, daughters as old as I am, and who may yet be—though I earnestly hope not—in as great difficulty and perplexity as I am this day. Will you tell me what is the meaning of all this—why do they ask so many questions about my money?"

"I do not know anything about the matter, my dear," he answered, in his most patriarchal manner. "I have not the faintest idea what it is my young partner has in his mind, but you may be quite certain it is nothing except what will turn out for your good eventually. You may trust him implicitly."

Dolly surveyed the trio while Mr. Asherill was speaking, and when he finished she felt she had never seen at one time three men together before less calculated to inspire confidence.

"The days of highwaymen are over," she said when describing the interview subsequently to Mrs. Werner, "but I felt instinctively I had got amongst banditti."

"Supposing," she said, turning to Mr. Swanland, "that there were no settlements, how will it affect me?"

"How will it affect Mrs. Mortomley, Benning?" inquired Mr. Swanland innocently.

"What is the use of asking such a question of me?" exclaimed Mr. Benning irritably. "You know as well as I that in such a case what is hers is her husband's, and—"

"Go on please," said Dolly, as he paused.

"And what is your husband's, I was going to say," he proceeded, spite of Mr. Swanland's look of entreaty, "is his creditors'."

"Then you mean to have my money?" she said, "you mean to take the only thing left to us?"

"There may be a settlement you know," observed Mr. Swanland in a soothing voice.

"There is not, I feel there is not," she interrupted.

"And in any case," continued Mr. Swanland, "it is not we who take, but the law; it is not we who have, but the creditors. We must hope for the best, however, Mrs. Mortomley. No one will be more truly rejoiced than I to know this money is secured to you."

She seemed as if she had not heard his sentence, but sat for a minute like one stunned. Then she said bitterly,

"A 'Well Wisher' sent me two pounds four the other day, and I forwarded the amount to the London Hospital. It seems to me I may yet have reason to repent of my haste at my leisure."

In an airy manner Mr. Swanland, apparently treating her words as a mere jest, remarked, "I am not quite sure, Mrs. Mortomley, that in my capacity as trustee the two pounds four you mention ought not to have been handed over to me."

If his words conveyed any meaning to her she made no sign of understanding it. After sitting for a few moments lost in thought she rose, and saying "I shall go at once to a solicitor," inclined her head to the accountants and Mr. Benning, and left the office, before Mr. Asherill could open the door for her to pass out.

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.

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 men tioned 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.

"Really I cannot see the necessity. The presence of Mr. Swanland's clerk of course relieves you from all real responsibility."

"I suppose so—but still—"

"But still what?"

"When we leave Homewood we shall leave it for good. I feel that. I mean we shall leave it altogether, whether for good or for ill, whichever may befall."

"If you were to go from home for a few weeks, you would look at your position much more cheerfully," answered Mr. Leigh, who was not himself utterly unacquainted with some of the moods and tenses of a woman's mind.

"Mr. Benning said we should be quite free to go when once the meeting of creditors was over," Mrs. Mortomley remarked.

"That was an absurd observation," returned Mr. Leigh, "for you are perfectly free to go now."

"Yes; but he meant for ever," Dolly explained. "I am not mistaken," she went on. "He said they could get a manager, that my husband's health was broken, and that the best thing we could do was to go to some pretty seaside place and live there comfortably upon my money."

Mr. Leigh's face darkened. "I must see to this," he said, speaking apparently to himself; then added, "Trust me, Mrs. Mortomley, I will do all in my power for you. I am afraid you have made one false step, but we must try to remedy it as far as possible. In the meantime most certainly I should get Mr. Mortomley away for a time. The state of his health complicates matters very much. Have you—excuse the question, but I know how suddenly these things sometimes come upon men of business—have you money?"

"Yes, thank you," she answered. "I have enough for the present; at least, Rupert has money of mine, and I can get it from him."

"And you will try to remove Mr. Mortomley," he went on, "and pray let me hear from you, and send me your address. Do not be so despondent, Mrs. Mortomley. Only get your husband well and everything will yet be right."

She smiled, but shook her head incredulously.

"You are very kind, Mr. Leigh," she said, "and I only hope your pleasant words may prove true prophecies. If they do not, when once we know the worst, whatever that may prove, we must try to bear it. I think we shall be able," added Dolly a little defiantly, drawing herself up about a quarter of an inch. She was so little she had generally to go about the world stretched out as much as possible.

"She is not a bad specimen of a woman, if she only knew how to dress herself suitably," thought Mr. Leigh after her departure, "but I am afraid she is not the wife poor Mortomley ought to have had at a crisis like this."

Which was really very hard upon Dolly, who had not the slightest intention of ever reproaching Mortomley—as a model wife might have done—because of the ruin that had come upon them.

Rather she was considering as she walked to Fenchurch Street how she should keep knowledge of this latest misfortune from him.

And then as regarded her dress, so objectionable in the eyes of a man who knew exactly the sort of sad-coloured garments appropriate for such an errand as Mrs. Mortomley's, does any intelligent reader suppose it was one atom too rich or too rare in the opinion of those four young ladies from Chigwell with whom Mrs. Mortomley travelled on her return journey?

Nay, rather they reported when they reached their own home, that Mrs. Mortomley looked nicer than usual, was pleasanter and more talkative even than her wont, and beautifully dressed, they added as the crowning point in her perfections.

If they had known what Dolly thought about them, they might not have been so enthusiastic in her praise.

Having no one near at hand in whom she could confide, she marvelled to herself,

"I wonder whether on the face of the earth there is any creature so utterly wearisome as a human being."

CHAPTER XII.

Meantime on the Saturday there had been almost a turn out of the workmen, who were kept waiting for their wages until it suited Mr. Bailey's convenience to go down from London to pay them.

They grumbled pretty freely concerning this irregularity; so freely, indeed, that Mr. Bailey told them if they did not like Mr. Swanland's management they had better leave. Whereupon they said they did not like Mr. Swanland's management if it kept them kicking their heels for five hours when they might have been at home, and that they would leave.

On hearing this, Mr. Bailey drew in his horns, and said they had better not be hasty, and that he would speak to Mr. Swanland. To both of which suggestions they agreed somewhat sullenly, and so ended that week.

The next opened with the valuation of the Homewood furniture and other effects—as a "mere matter of form," so Mr. Swanland declared—but, like the trustee's, the auctioneer's men took possession of the place as if it belonged to them, and without either with your leave or by your leave, walked from room to room making their inventory.

Up to the time of their arrival Dolly had entertained hopes of inducing her husband to make an effort to get downstairs. For days previously she had been artfully striving to make him believe his presence in the works was earnestly needed. She had suggested his spending an evening in the drawing-room. She had on Sunday drawn a picture of the conservatory sufficient to have tempted any ordinary invalid to hazard the undertaking, but Mortomley's malady was as much mental as physical, and not any medicine she could administer was able to cure that mind diseased, which, no less than bodily illness, had stricken him with a blow so sudden and so sharp.

"We will see to-morrow, dear," was all the answer she could ever elicit.

All in vain she guaranteed him immunity from indignant creditors, who would persist in visiting Homewood in order to recite their wrongs, and to hope Mr. Mortomley would see them safe at all events; in vain she promised that not a man in possession should cross his sight; in vain she spoke of the brighter days dawning before them; in vain she employed eloquence, and it may be a little deceit.

It was always, "We will see to-morrow;" but once the morrow came, the evil hour was again deferred when Mortomley should look on the face of his fair house dishonoured, when he should nerve himself up to pass where sacrilegious feet had trodden down the beauty and the grace, destroyed all the sweet memories which once clustered round and about the place where his father had lived, where he himself was born.

And sometimes Dolly felt angry and sometimes sad, but she never felt hopeless until those men intruding into the very room where Mortomley sat listlessly looking out at the gloomy sky, taught him the precise position he occupied.

With a white face Dolly watched their movements, and when in a short time they shut the door behind them, she went up to her husband and kissed his forehead.

"Should you not like to be away from all this?" she asked.

"Yes, if there were any place to which we could go away," was the answer.

"We must leave," said Dolly, and then—for she was growing wise—she sat down to calculate the cost.

She wanted to take him to the seaside, but she failed to see how that was to be managed.

She could have done it by running into debt, for her credit was good at those seaside places where she had been the idol of landlords and where tradespeople had delighted at her reappearance. But she had no intention of going into debt unless she saw some means of being able to repay those who put trust in her honesty.

She could not take her husband to the seaside, and yet she felt he must be got away from Homewood. The changed atmosphere of that once charming home was killing him. With the rare sympathy which women like Dolly, capable of putting themselves and their interests entirely on one side, possess, she understood that air breathed by those dreadful men was death to a person in his state of health; and she racked her brains to think of some plan by which she might get him away, even for a fortnight, from the sound of strange voices, from the haunting presence of Messrs. Turner and Meadows, and the other more insignificant sheriff's officer.

Not in the worst time they ever previously passed through, had Mrs. Mortomley experienced such utter misery as that which fell to her lot after Mr. Swanland took the reins of government.

She knew utter anarchy prevailed in the works. She knew the men were at daggers drawn with each other, unanimous only in one desire viz., that of circumventing Mr. Meadows and outwitting his vigilance. She knew the horses were not properly attended to; and when Lang justly indignant at the proceeding, told her Bess had been put in one of the carts and sent out with a load for the docks, Mrs. Mortomley was fain to make an excuse to get rid of the man, that he might not see the passion of grief his news excited in her.

Helpless they were, both Mortomley and his wife. Ciphers where they had once had authority; mere paupers, living on sufferance in a house no longer theirs; by rapid degrees Dolly was learning what liquidation by arrangement really meant, and why Mr. Kleinwort had said her husband would find bankruptcy not all pleasure.

While she was pondering how to get away from it all, how to escape from the sight of ills she was powerless to cure, and the sound of complaints to which she was weary of listening, Thursday came, and with a, to her, startling discovery. Mr. Meadows, who after the first morning or so, decided it was more comfortable to lie in bed late than to get up early, had on the Wednesday evening left on Mr. Lang's desk a memorandum concerning some account-books which he wished sent up to Salisbury House, said memorandum being pencilled on the back of part of the very note at the end of which Mr. Swanland had made that inquiry concerning Mr. Mortomley's letters previously recorded.

This precious morsel Lang carried to Esther, who carried it to her mistress, who in her turn demanded from Mr. Meadows an explanation as to how it happened his employer dared to intercept her letters.

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—

"It has come to that."

Mrs. Werner found it a more difficult task to induce Mortomley to accept her invitation than she had expected it would prove; but eventually her arguments and his love for Dolly carried the day, and he agreed to go to Brighton, and stay with his wife's friend for a week, or perhaps ten days.

"I must get well," he said, "before the meeting of creditors, and I feel I can never get well here. You are very, very kind, Mrs. Werner. Dolly and I will be but dull guests I fear; but you must put up with our—stupidity."

And he stretched out his thin wasted hand which she took in hers, and there came before them both a vision of the old house at Dassell, embowered in trees, with its green lawns and stately park, its low, spacious rooms, its quiet and its peace, where he first met Dolly in the summer days gone by.

Looking back over one's experience of life, it seems marvellous to recollect how few words one ever has heard spoken in times of danger or of trial; how the once fluent tongue is paralysed by the overflowing heart; how trouble stands sentinel beside the lips, and bars the utterance of sentences which in happier times ran glibly and smoothly on.

In the time of their agony, Mortomley had nothing to say, and his wife but little.

He made no lamentation nor did she. Ruin had come upon them, and how they should make their way through it no man could tell; but they were silent about their griefs. It was upon the most ordinary topics Mrs. Werner and Mortomley discoursed, whilst Dolly's utterances to Esther were of the most commonplace description. How a portion of their luggage was to be sent to Brighton, and the remainder, except the small amount Dolly proposed taking with her, left at Homewood until further orders.

How Esther was to be certain to look after her own comforts, and purchase trifling luxuries for herself, how Mrs. Mortomley depended on her writing every day, and trusting the posting of the letters only to Lang or Hankins—with fifty other such little charges—this was all she found to say while packing up to leave the dear home of all her happy married life in the possession of strangers. And such strangers.

As she thought of it, Dolly flung open the window and looked out.

Oh! fair—fair home—smiling with your wealth of flowers under the dark autumnal sky, can it be that when those whose hearts have been entwined about you are gone, who have loved you with perhaps too earthly a love, are departed, you shall turn as sweet a face and give as tender a greeting to the future men and women destined to look upon your beauty as you did to those who are leaving you for ever?

No, thank God, there comes a desolation of place as there comes a wreck of person; nature seems to sympathize with humanity, and when the old owners have been torn from the soil, the soil as if in sympathy grows weeds instead of flowers—grows a tangle of discontent where sweet buds were wont to climb.

If in prophetic vision Dolly had been able at that moment to see Homewood as it appeared six months after, she would have felt comforted. As it was, she looked forth over the sweet modest home which had been hers and his with a terrible despair, but she bore the pain in silence.

"First or last," as Esther said afterwards, "she never heard a murmur from husband or wife."

Which was perhaps why she loved them both so well. With every vein in her heart that simple country girl, who was not very clever, but whose heart stood her amply instead of brains, loved the master and mistress upon whom misfortune had fallen so suddenly, and to her thinking so inexplicably.

Physically she was not brave, but she would have faced death to keep trouble from them. She was not possessed of much courage; no, not the courage which will go downstairs alone if it hears a noise in the night, but she would have encountered any danger had Dolly asked her to do so.

It was well Mrs. Mortomley possessed a larger amount of common sense than any one gave her credit for, otherwise she might have incited her maid to deeds the execution of which would have filled Mr. Forde's soul with rejoicing. Dolly sternly prohibited all looting from the premises. Not a trunk she packed or saw packed, but might have borne the scrutiny of Mr. Swanland himself, and yet the modest bonnet-box and portmanteau carried down into the hall failed to meet with the approbation of Mr. Swanland's man.

"I am very sorry, ma'am," he said, "but I cannot allow these things to leave the house without Mr. Swanland's permission."

Dolly turned and looked at him. I think if a look could have struck him dead where he stood, he had never spoken more.

With all the authority of Salisbury House behind him, Meadows quailed at sight of her face, wondering what should follow.

But nothing followed except this:

"Take those things upstairs at once," she said, turning to Esther and Lang, "put them in my dressing-room with the other boxes, and bring me the key of the door."

"I do not know, madam," remarked Mr. Meadows, emboldened by what he considered her previous submission, "whether you are aware that if you lock the door we can break it open."

Then Dolly found tongue.

"Do it," she said; "only break open any door I choose to lock, and I will make things unpleasant for you and your master too. I have endured at your hands and his what I believe no woman ever endured before, but if you presume another inch I will have justice if I carry our case into every court in England."

She did not know, poor soul, her cause had been settled in a court whence there is no appeal, and for that very reason speaking fearlessly her words carried weight.

Mr. Meadows shrank out of the hall as if she had struck him a blow, and Dolly leaning against the lintel of the porch and looking at Mrs. Werner's carriage and horses, which were framed to her by a wreath of clematis and roses, felt for the moment as if she had won a victory.

And by her retreat she had; but it is only after the battle any one engaged can tell when the tide of war began to turn.

It turned for the Mortomleys then. It turned when Mrs. Mortomley lifted up her voice and defied Mr. Swanland's bailiff. In that moment she ensured ultimate success for her husband—at a price.