At about two o'clock in the afternoon the footman, doing his turn of duty by looking out of window in the hall of Mr. Streightley's house, was surprised by seeing his mistress come downstairs in her bonnet and cloak, with her veil down, and carrying a square parcel in her hand, "which it looked like a box done up in paper," the man said afterwards, when questioned concerning the circumstance. "Open the door, William, if you please," said Mrs. Streightley. The man obeyed, wondering. "I am going to Queen Anne Street. I don't require the carriage," said Katharine. And she passed out of the door, and out of the footman's sight. CHAPTER XII. RETRIBUTION. While the events recorded in the last chapter had been taking place, Robert Streightley had been down to Middlemeads to give the necessary orders for the immediate reduction of the establishment there. It was an act over which a great many people would have been sillily sentimental, but one which affected Robert Streightley very little indeed. The stately old mansion had never been his home, though it had contained his wife and his household gods; he had never had the same regard for it as for the dingy Brixton villa, where every thing was so old and mean and common. Even when he first bought the place, and inhabited it in the early days of his wedded life, long before the falseness of his position and the chance of some day being compelled to return to his old and quiet mode of life had dawned on him, he had felt uncomfortable and out of place at Middlemeads. But latterly, as speculation after speculation "went wrong" in the City, and as scarcely a week passed without the addition of some new improvement, the importation of some fresh luxury by Katharine's orders, the negative feelings with which he had regarded that estate, for the possession of which he was so much envied and hated, grew into positive dislike; he remembered that the first time he had seen the place was the day before he had had that fatal conference with Mr. Guyon, and he began to associate most of his troubles with the name of Middlemeads.