‘And you cannot have lunch with me?’ she asked when her friend rose.

‘I cannot; dear.’

‘May I write to you?’ Stella said with a meaning look.

‘Yes, to tell me how you are.’

Adela had not got far from the house when she saw her husband walking towards her.  She looked at him steadily.

‘I happened to be near,’ he explained, ’and thought I might as well go home with you.’

‘I might have been gone.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t have waited long.’

The form of his reply discovered that he had no intention of calling at the house; Adela understood that he had been in Avenue Road for some time, probably had reached it very soon after her.

The next morning there arrived for Mutimer a letter from Alice.  She desired to see him; her husband would. be from home all day, and she would be found at any hour; her business was of importance—­underlined.

Mutimer went shortly after breakfast, and Alice received him very much as she would have done in the days before the catastrophe.  She had arrayed herself with special care; he found her leaning on cushions, her feet on a stool, the eternal novel on her lap.  Her brother had to stifle anger at seeing her thus in appearance unaffected by the storm which had swept away his own happiness and luxuries.

‘What is it you want?’ he asked at once, without preliminary greeting.

‘You are not very polite,’ Alice returned.  ’Perhaps you’ll take a chair.’

‘I haven’t much time, so please don’t waste what I can afford.’

‘Are you so busy?  Have you found something to do?’

’I’m likely to have enough to do with people who keep what doesn’t belong to them.’

‘It isn’t my doing, Dick,’ she said more seriously.

‘I don’t suppose it is.’

‘Then you oughtn’t to be angry with me.’

‘I’m not angry.  What do you want?’

’I went to see mother yesterday.  I think she wants you to go; it looked like it.’

‘I’ll go some day.’

’It’s too bad that she should have to keep ‘Arry in idleness.’

‘She hasn’t to keep him.  I send her money.’

‘But how are you to afford that?’

‘That’s not your business.’

Alice looked indignant.

‘I think you might speak more politely to me in my own house.’

‘It isn’t your own house.’

’It is as long as I live in it.  I suppose you’d like to see me go back to a workroom.  It’s all very well for you; if you live in lodgings, that doesn’t say you’ve got no money.  We have to do the best we can for ourselves; we haven’t got your chances of making a good bargain.’

It was said with much intention; Alice hall closed her eyes and curled her lips in a disdainful smile.

‘What chances?  What do you mean?’

’Perhaps if I’d been a .particular friend of Mr. Eldon’s—­never mind.’