’Do you hear what I say?  I’m going by the first train this afternoon.’

‘All right,’ remarked Beatrice placidly.  ’Don’t interrupt me just now.

The result of this was fury directed against Beatrice, who found herself accused of every domestic vice compatible with her position.  She was a sordid creature, living at other people’s expense,—­a selfish, scheming, envious wretch—­

‘If I were your husband,’ remarked the other without looking up, ’I should long since have turned you into the street—­if I hadn’t broken your neck first.’

Exercise in quarrel only made Ada’s voice the clearer and more shrill.  It rose now to the highest points of a not inconsiderable compass.  But Beatrice continued to write, and by resolute silence put a limit to her sister’s railing.  A pause had just come about, when the door was thrown open, and in rushed Fanny, hatted and gloved from a walk.

‘He’s dead!’ she said excitedly.  ‘He’s dead!’

Beatrice turned with a look of interest.  ‘Who?  Mr. Lord?’

‘Yes.  The blinds are all down.  He must have died in the night.’

Her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled, as though she had brought the most exhilarating news.

‘What do I care?’ said Mrs. Peachey, to whom her sister had addressed the last remark.

‘Just as much as I care about your affairs, no doubt,’ returned Fanny, with genial frankness.

‘Don’t be in too great a hurry,’ remarked Beatrice, who showed the calculating wrinkle at the corner of her eye.  ’Because he’s dead, that doesn’t say that your masher comes in for money.’

‘Who’ll get it, then?’

‘There may be nothing worth speaking of to get, for all we know.’

Beatrice had not as yet gained Fanny’s co-operation in the commercial scheme now being elaborated; though of far more amiable nature than Mrs. Peachey, she heartily hoped that the girl might be disappointed in her expectations from Mr. Lord’s will.  An hour later, she walked along Grove Lane, and saw for herself that Fanny’s announcement was accurate; the close-drawn blinds could mean but one thing.

To-day there was little likelihood of learning particulars, but on the morrow Fanny might perchance hear something from Horace Lord.  However, the evening brought a note, hand-delivered by some stranger.  Horace wrote only a line or two, informing Fanny that his father had died about eight o’clock that morning, and adding:  ‘Please be at home to-morrow at twelve.’

At twelve next day Fanny received her lover alone in the drawing-room.  He entered with the exaggerated solemnity of a very young man who knows for the first time a grave bereavement, and feels the momentary importance it confers upon him.  Fanny, trying to regard him without a smile, grimaced; decorous behaviour was at all times impossible to her, for she neither understood its nature nor felt its obligation.  In a few minutes she smiled unrestrainedly, and spoke the things that rose to her lips.