"I wonder what Dick North means by staying away like this!--and leaving orders at Ticknells' that no cheques are to be cashed!" growled madam in soliloquy. "He ought to be here. He ought to force those miserable men of his back to work, whether they will or not. He's away; Arthur's away; Sidney's away: and with this uncertain state of things out of doors and trouble within, the house is worse than a dungeon. People seem to be neglecting it: even Mary Dallory stays without the gates. That girl's an artful flirt: as Matilda said yesterday. If Arthur and Dick were back she'd come fast enough: I should like to know which of the two she most cares for. It is absurd, though, to speak of her in conjunction with Dick North! I think I'll go off somewhere for a time. Should this suspicion of fever prove correct, the place will not be safe. I shall want a hundred pounds or two. And Sidney must have money. He says he'll do something desperate if I don't send it--but he has said that before. Confound it all! Why does not gold grow upon trees?" Madam's dress this morning was a striped lilac silk of amazing rustle and richness. Letting it all out behind her, she went down the stairs and through the hall, sweeping the dust along in a little cloud. Mr. North was not in his parlour; madam went about looking for him. To her surprise she found him in the drawing-room; it was not often he ventured into that exclusive place. He had a shabby long coat on, and a straw hat. Madam's scornful head went up when she saw him there. "What do you want?" she asked in a tone that plainly said he had about as much right in the room as an unwelcome stranger. "I have come to beg some cotton of Matilda to tie up these flowers," was Mr. North's answer. "Thomas Hepburn's little boy is here, and I thought I'd give the child a posy." "A posy!" repeated madam, scorning the homely term. "I have no cotton," said Matilda, who lay back in a chair, reading. "What should bring cotton in a drawing-room?" "Oh well--I can bind it with a piece of variegated grass," said Mr. North with resignation. "I'm sorry to have troubled you, Matilda." "And when you have disposed of your 'posy,' I am coming to your parlour," said madam. Mr. North groaned as he went out. He knew that his peace was about to be destroyed for the day. There were moments when he thought heart and brain must give way under home worries and madam's. "When did this come?" enquired madam, pointing to a letter that was placed upright on the mantelpiece: one addressed to Richard North, in her son Arthur's writing. "This morning," shortly answered Matilda, not looking up from her book. "Yes, Arthur can write often enough to Dick. This is the second letter that has come for him within a week. What did you do with the other?" madam broke off to ask. "Put it into Dick's room until he comes home."