Captain Arthur Bohun, who liked to take most things easily, dressing included, stood hair-brush in hand. He had moved away from the glass, and was looking from the open window. His thoughts were busy. They ran on that little episode of the morning, when madam, passing in her carriage, had seen him with Ellen Adair, and had chosen to display her sentiments on the subject in the manner described. That it would not end there, Arthur felt sure; madam would inevitably treat him to a little more of her mind. It was rather a singular thing--as if Fate had been intervening with its usual cross purposes--for circumstances so to have ordered it that madam should still be in ignorance of their intimacy. Almost always when Mrs. Cumberland was at home, it chanced that madam was away; and, when madam was at the Hall, Mrs. Cumberland was elsewhere. Thus, during Mrs. Cumberland's prolonged stay at Niton, madam's presence blessed her household; the very week that that lady returned to Dallory Ham, madam took her departure, and had only recently returned. She had spent the interval in Germany. Sidney North, her well-beloved son, giving trouble as usual to all who were connected with him, had found England rather warm for him in early spring, and had betaken himself to Germany. His chief point of sojourn was Homburg, and madam, with her daughter Matilda, had been making it hers since the spring. Mr. North, in the relief her absence brought him, had used every exertion to supply her with the money she so rapaciously sent home for. It would appear that the accommodation had not been sufficient, for--as was soon to be discovered by Richard--the cheques shown to him by his father had been drawn by her at Homburg. And so, as Fate or Fortune had willed it, Mrs. North had been out of the way of watching the progress of the intimacy between her son and Ellen Adair. A quick knock at the chamber-door, and madam swept in, a large crimson rose, just brought from the greenhouse, adorning her jet-black hair, her white silk gown rustling and trailing after her. As well as though she had already spoken, Arthur knew what she had come for. He thought that she was losing no time and must have hurried over her toilette purposely. The carriage had not long returned home, for she and Matilda had been to a distance, and remained out to luncheon. Arthur, not moving from where he was, began brushing his hair haphazard. "I suppose I am late, madam?" "Was it _you_ that I passed this afternoon in Dallory Ham, talking to some girl?" began madam, taking no notice of his remark. "It was me, safe enough; I had been calling on Mrs. Cumberland," replied Arthur, carelessly. "Dick also. By the way you stared, madam, I fancied you scarcely knew me." A little banter. Madam might take it seriously, or not, as she chose. She went round to the other side of the dressing-table, and stood opposite him at the window. "What girl were you talking to?" "Girl! I was with Miss Adair."