The days sped with the swiftness monotony lends to time.  Mrs. Liddell always visited her daughter once a week.  Occasionally Katherine got leave of absence, and spent an hour or two at home, where she enjoyed a game of play with her little nephews.  Otherwise home was less homelike than formerly.  Ada was sulky and dissatisfied; she dared not intrude on Mr. Liddell in his present condition; and she was dreadfully annoyed at not being able to give Colonel Ormonde any encouraging news on this head.  Her influence on the family circle, therefore, was not cheerful.  Besides this, though Mrs. Liddell kept a brave front, and did not again allow herself the luxury of confidence in her daughter, there were unmistakable signs of care and trouble in her face, her voice.  She was unfailing in her kind forbearance to the woman her son had loved, and whatever good existed in Mrs. Fred’s rubbishy little heart responded to the genial, broad humanity of her mother-in-law.  But Katherine perceived, or thought she perceived, that Mrs. Liddell was wearing herself down in the effort to make her inmates comfortable, and so to beat out her scanty store of sovereigns as to make them stretch to the margin of her necessities.  It was a very shadowy and narrow pass through which her road of life led Katherine at this period, nor was there much prospect beyond.  Moreover, as her mother had anticipated, the invisible cords which bound her to the moribund old miser were tightening their hold more and more, she often looked back and wondered at the sort of numbness which stole over her spirit during this time of trial.

September was now in its first week; the weather was wet and cold; and Katherine was thankful when Mr. Newton’s weekly visit was due.  It was particularly stormy that day, and he was a little later than usual.

When she had left solicitor and client together for some time, she descended, as was her custom, to make a cup of tea for the former, and give her uncle his beef tea or jelly.

Mr. Newton rose, shook hands with her, and then resumed his conversation with Mr. Liddell.

“I do not for a moment mean to say that he is a reckless bettor or a mere gambling horse-racer; and, after all, to enter a horse or two for the local races, or even Newmarket, is perfectly allowable in a man of his fortune—­it will neither make him nor mar him.”

“It will mar him,” returned Mr. Liddell, in more energetic tones than Katherine had heard him utter since he was laid up.  “A man who believes he is rich enough to throw away money is on the brink of ruin.  He appears to me in a totally different light.  I thought he was steady, thoughtful, alive to the responsibility of his position.  Ah, who is to be trusted?  Who?”

There seemed no reply to this, for Mr. Newton started a new and absorbing topic.

“Mr. Fergusson is keeping wonderfully well,” he remarked.  “His sister was calling on my wife yesterday, and says that since he took this new food—­’Revalenta Arabica,’ I think it is called—­he is quite a new man.”