Mrs. Presty shook her head compassionately.  “My good sir, surely you know me too well to think that I am to be disposed of in that easy way?  Must I remind you that your wife’s mother has ’the cunning of the devil’?”

Linley recognized his own words.  “So you were listening among the trees!” he said.

“Yes; I was listening; and I have only to regret that I didn’t hear more.  Let us return to our subject.  I don’t trust my daughter’s interests—­my much-injured daughter’s interests—­in your hands.  They are not clean hands, Mr. Linley.  I have a duty to do; and I shall do it to-morrow.”

“No, Mrs. Presty, you won’t do it to-morrow.”

“Who will prevent me?”

“I shall prevent you.”

“In what way, if you please?”

“I don’t think it necessary to answer that question.  My servants will have their instructions; and I shall see myself that my orders are obeyed.”

“Thank you.  I begin to understand; I am to be turned out of the house.  Very well.  We shall see what my daughter says.”

“You know as well as I do, Mrs. Presty, that if your daughter is forced to choose between us she will decide for her husband.  You have the night before you for consideration.  I have no more to say.”

Among Mrs. Presty’s merits, it is only just to reckon a capacity for making up her mind rapidly, under stress of circumstances.  Before Linley had opened the door, on his way out, he was called back.

“I am shocked to trouble you again,” Mrs. Presty said, “but I don’t propose to interfere with my night’s rest by thinking about you.  My position is perfectly clear to me, without wasting time in consideration.  When a man so completely forgets what is due to the weaker sex as to threaten a woman, the woman has no alternative but to submit.  You are aware that I had arranged to see my daughter to-morrow morning.  I yield to brute force, sir.  Tell your wife that I shall not keep my appointment.  Are you satisfied?”

“Quite satisfied,” Linley said—­and left the room.

His mother-in-law looked after him with a familiar expression of opinion, and a smile of supreme contempt.

“You fool!”

Only two words; and yet there seemed to be some hidden meaning in them—­relating perhaps to what might happen on the next day—­which gently tickled Mrs. Presty in the region assigned by phrenologists to the sense of self-esteem.

Chapter XII.

Two of Them Sleep Badly.

Waiting for Sydney to come into the bedroom as usual and wish her good-night, Kitty was astonished by the appearance of her grandmother, entering on tiptoe from the corridor, with a small paper parcel in her hand.

“Whisper!” said Mrs. Presty, pointing to the open door of communication with Mrs. Linley’s room.  “This is your birthday present.  You mustn’t look at it till you wake to-morrow morning.”  She pushed the parcel under the pillow—­and, instead of saying good-night, took a chair and sat down.