Mr. Grubb rang for the servants to put out the wax-lights, and went up in his turn. There was no sleep for him that night, whatever there might have been for her. He knew not how to act, how to arrest this new pursuit of hers; he scarcely knew even how to open the matter to her. She appeared to be asleep when he rose in the morning and passed into his dressing-room. She herself soon afforded him the opportunity. He was seated at his solitary breakfast, a meal his wife rarely condescended to take with him, when her maid entered, bringing a message from her lady--that she wished to see him before he left for the City. Master Charley Cleveland, usually his breakfast companion, had not made his appearance at home since the previous night. "Is your lady up, Darvy?" "Oh dear yes, sir, and at breakfast in her dressing-room." He went up to it. How very lovely she looked, sitting there at her coffee, in her embroidered white dress and pink ribbons, and the delicate lace cap shading her sweet features. She had risen thus early to get money from him; he knew that, before she asked for it. "You wished to see me, Lady Adela." "I want some money," she said in a light, flippant kind of tone, as if it were the sole purpose of Mr. Grubb's existence to supply her demands. "Impossible," he rejoined. "You had two hundred pounds from me the day before yesterday." "I must have two hundred more this morning. I want it." "What is it that you are doing with all this money? It has much puzzled me." "Oh--making a purse for myself," she answered saucily. "You can trust to me to do that for you. I cannot continue to supply you, Adela." "But I must have it," she retorted, raising her voice, and speaking as if he were the very dirt under her feet. "I will have it." "No," he replied calmly, but with firm resolution in his tone. "I shall give you no more until your allowance is due." She looked up, quite a furious expression on her lovely face. "Not give it me! Why, what do you suppose I married you for?" "Adela!" came his reproof, almost whispered. "I would not have taken you but for your money; you know that. They promised me at home that I should have unlimited command of it; and I will." "You have had unlimited command," he observed, and there was no irritation suffered to appear in his tone, whatever may have been his inward pain. "It is for your own sake I must discontinue to supply it." "You are intelligible!" was her scornful rejoinder: for, in good truth, this refusal was making havoc of her temper. "All that you can need in every way shall be yours, Adela. Purchase what you like, order what you like; I will pay the bills without a murmur. _But I will not give you money to waste, as you have latterly wasted it, at Lady Sanely's_." She rose from her seat, pale with anger. "First Charles Cleveland, then Lady Sanely: what else am I to be lectured upon? How dare you presume to interfere with my pursuits?"