Lotty wondered vaguely and rather sadly how much of this statement was true.  But she did not dare to ask.  She had promised her assistance.  Every night she woke with a dreadful dream of a policeman knocking at the door; whenever she saw a man in blue she trembled; and she knew perfectly well that, if the plot failed, it was she herself, in all probability, and not her husband at all, who would be put in the dock.  She did not believe a word about the cousin; she knew she was going to do a vile and dreadful wickedness, but she was ready to go through with it, or with anything else, to pleasure a husband who already, the honeymoon hardly finished, showed the propensities of a rover.

“Very well, Lotty; we are going there at once.  You need take nothing with you, but you won’t come back here for a good spell.  In fact, I think I shall have to give up these lodgings, for fear of accidents.  I shall leave you with your cousin.”

“Yes; and I’m to be quiet, and behave pretty, I suppose?”

“You’ll be just as quiet and demure as you used to be when you were serving in the music shop.  No loud laughing, no capers, no comic songs, and no dancing.”

“And am I to begin at once by asking for the money to be—­what do you call it, transferred?”

“No; you are not on any account to say a word about the money; you are to go on living there without hinting at the money—­without showing any desire to discuss the subject—­perhaps for months, until there can’t be the shadow of a doubt that you are the old woman’s cousin.  You are to make much of her, flatter her, cocker her up, find out all the family secrets, and get the length of her foot; but you are not to say one single word about the money.  As for your manners, I’m not afraid of them, because when you like, you can look and talk like a countess.”

“I know now.”  She got up and changed her face so that it became at once subdued and quiet, like a quiet serving-girl behind a counter.  “So, is that modest enough, Joe?  And as for singing, I shall sing for her, but not music-hall trash.  This kind of thing.  Listen.”

There was a piano in the room, and she sat down and sang to her own accompaniment, with a sweet, low voice, one of the soft, sad German songs.

“That’ll do,” cried Joe.  “Hang me! what a clever girl you are, Lotty!  That’s the kind of thing the swells like.  As for me, give me ten minutes of Jolly Nash.  But you know how to pull ’em in, Lotty.”

It was approaching twelve, the hour when they were due.  Lotty retired and arrayed herself in her quietest and most sober dress, a costume in some brown stuff, with a bonnet to match.  She put on her best gloves and boots, having herself felt the inferiority of the shop-girl to the lady in those minor points, and she modified and mitigated her fringe, which, she knew, was rather more exaggerated than young ladies in society generally wear.

“You’re not afraid, Lotty?” said Joe, when at last she was ready to start.