“Certainly not, Mrs. Tribb.  How could I take money from her?”

“And why not, Master Noel? if you’ll excuse my making so free.  As a child she’d give you anything in the way of toys, and as a grown-up, her head is yours if not her heart, as is—­”

“There! there!  Don’t talk any more,” said Lambert, coloring and vexed.

“I haven’t annoyed you, sir, I hope.  It’s my heart as speaks.”

“I appreciate the interest you take in the family, Mrs. Tribb, but you had better leave some things unsaid.  Now, go and prepare tea, as Lady Agnes has written saying she will be here this afternoon.”

“Oh, Master Noel, and you only tell me now.  Then there ain’t time to cook them cakes she dotes on.”

But Lambert declined to argue further, and Mrs. Tribb withdrew, murmuring that she would have to make shift with sardine sandwiches.  Her tongue was assuredly something of a nuisance, but the young man knew how devoted she was to the family, and, since she had looked after him when he was a child, he sanctioned in her a freedom he would not have permitted any one else to indulge in.  And it is to be feared, that the little woman in her zeal sometimes abused her privileges.

The sitting room was small and cramped, and atrociously furnished in an overcrowded way.  There were patterns on the wall-paper, on the carpet, on the tablecloth and curtains, until the eye ached for a clean surface without a design.  And there were so many ill-matched colors, misused for decorative purposes, that Lambert shuddered to the core of his artistic soul when he beheld them.  To neutralize the glaring tints, he pulled down the blinds of the two windows which looked on to a dull suburban roadway, and thus shut out the weak sunshine.  Then he threw himself into an uncomfortable arm-chair and sought solace in his briar root.  The future was dark, the present was disagreeable, and the past would not bear thinking about, so intimately did it deal with the murder of Pine, the threats of Silver, and the misery occasioned by the sacrifice of Agnes to the family fetish.  It was in the young man’s mind to leave England forthwith and begin a new life, unhampered by former troubles and present grievances.  But Agnes required help and could not be left to struggle unaided, so Lambert silently vowed again, as he had vowed before, to stand by her to the end.  Yet so far he was unable to see what the end would be.

While he thus contemplated the unpleasantness of life he became aware that the front door bell was ringing, and he heard Mrs. Tribb hurrying along the passage.  So thin were the walls, and so near the door that he heard also the housekeeper’s effusive welcome, which was cut short by a gasp of surprise.  Lambert idly wondered what caused the little woman’s astonishment, but speedily learned when Agnes appeared in the room.  With rare discretion Mrs. Tribb ushered in the visitor and then fled to the kitchen to wonder why the widow had discarded her mourning.  “And him only planted six months, as you might say,” murmured the puzzled woman.  “Whatever will Master Noel say to such goings on?”