"Oh, quite calm--and immersed in his account-books." She smiled. "Yes, he's up, in his chair, and a pile of them on the table at his elbow! He says that the first thing to do is to reduce his expenditure. He hopes now to be able to pay off his mortgage in four or five years. She was awfully extravagant, you know, and he hated mortgaging Hilsey." "Do you think she knew he'd had to do it?" "No, she didn't. He wouldn't let her know. He liked her to think him richer than he was, I think." "Then he has no right to grumble at her extravagance." "I never heard him do that--and he didn't do it this morning. All the same it worried him, and now he can save, oh, enormously, of course! The barouche and the pair of horses are to go, the first thing." The barouche! It carried his mind back to the beginning, when its costly luxury framed for his eyes their earliest picture of Bernadette's dainty beauty. "If he isn't going to keep it, he might send it after her. I would." "Yes, you'd do a lot of foolish things if you were let. Luckily you're not!" "Judith, I half believe he's glad!" "Need we admit quite so much as that? Let's say he's facing the situation manfully!" "Oh, he talked like that to you too, did he?" He jumped up, and took a few paces about the lawn, then came back and stood beside her. "By God, if he's glad, she was right to go, Judith!" "I've never said anything to the contrary, have I? Have you seen Margaret this morning?" "No, I haven't. What made you ask me that just now?" "She came into my head. After all, she's a--a factor in the situation which, as Godfrey observes, has to be faced. I suppose I shall have to adopt her--more or less. Premature cares! Not so much Rome and Florence! It's as well to realise where one comes in oneself. When Godfrey talks of facing the situation, I don't think he proposes to do it alone, you know. You and I come into it." "Yes." He added after a pause: "Well, we can't turn our backs on him, can we?" "I've told her that her mother's gone on a visit--suddenly, to see a friend who's ill--and didn't like to wake her up to say good-bye. But that's a temporary solution, of course. She'll have to know more, and something'll have to be arranged about her and Bernadette. I don't suppose he'll object to Bernadette seeing her sometimes." She ended with a smile: "Perhaps you'll be asked to take her and be present at the interviews--and see that Sir Oliver's off the premises." "I'll be hanged if I do anything of the sort! And, as you asked me to stay here, I don't think you need go on laughing at me." Judith was impenitent. "It's a thing quite likely to happen," she insisted. "Bernadette would like it."