“Dear me, David, how touchy you are!  Why will you not accept a patent fact?  I have no wish to hurt your feelings, but I really must speak out plain common sense.  I always was noted for my common sense, was I not?  I don’t believe, in the length and breadth of England, you will find better behaved children than my five.  I have brought them up on a plan of my own, and now that I come here at great trouble, and I may also add expense, to try and help you in your—­oh, of course, I must not say it—­to try and help you when you want help, you fight shy of my slightest word.  Well, the fact is this:  I want you to take my advice, and to shut up Delaney Manor, or, better still, to let it well for the next two or three years, and go abroad yourself, letting me have the children!”

“My dear Jane!”

“Oh, I am your dear Jane now—­now that you think I can help you.  Well, David, I mean it, and what is more, the matter must be arranged.  I must take the children back with me the day after to-morrow.  Now I will go to my bedroom, as I am dead tired.  Perhaps you will ring the bell and ask a servant to take me there.”

Mr. Delaney moved slowly across the room.  He rang the electric bell, and a moment later the footman appeared in answer to his summons.  He gave certain directions, and Mrs. Dolman left the room.

The moment he found himself alone, the father of the children sank down on the nearest chair, put his hands on the table, pressed his face down on them, and uttered a bitter groan.

CHAPTER IV.

RUB-A-DUB.

“What am I to do, Evangeline?” said Mr. Delaney, a few moments later.  He stood up as he spoke, shook himself, and gazed straight before him.  It was exactly as if he were really speaking to the children’s mother.  Then again he buried his face in his big hands, and his strong frame shook.  After a moment’s pause he took up a photograph which stood near, and looked earnestly at the beautiful pictured face.  The eyes, so full of truth and tenderness, seemed to answer him back.  He started abruptly to his feet.  “You always directed me, Evangeline,” he said.  “God only knows what I am to do now that you have left me.  I am in some matters as weak as a reed, great, blustering fellow though I appear.  And now that Jane has come—­she always did bully me—­now that she has come and wants to take matters into her own hands, oh, Evangeline! what is to be done?  The fact is, I am not fit to manage this great house, nor the children, without you.  The children are not like others; they will not stand the treatment which ordinary children receive.  Oh, why has Jane, of all people, come?  What am I to do?”

He paced rapidly up and down his big study; clenching his hands at times, at times making use of a strong exclamation.

The butler knocked at the door.  “Dinner will be served in half an hour, sir,” he said.  “Am I to lay for two?”