'But isn't that rather----' 'Will you promise?' she cried once more, quite loudly and almost fiercely. And her accents were so full of entreaty, of command, and of despair, that Arthur feared a nervous crisis for her. 'If you wish it,' he said, forced to yield. And even then she could not be content. 'You give me your word to do nothing at all until you hear from me?' He paused, but he saw no alternative to submission. 'Yes.' She thanked him, and without shaking hands or saying good-night she went upstairs and resumed her place by the bedside. She could hear Uncle Meshach's cab drive away. 'How came Mr. Twemlow to be here, mother?' Rose demanded quietly. 'I don't know,' Leonora replied. 'He must have been at uncle's.' When the doctor had been again and gone, and various neighbours and the 'Signal' reporter had called to inquire for news, and the hour was growing late, Ethel said to her mother, 'Fred thinks he had better stay all night.' 'But why?' Leonora asked. 'Well, mother,' said Milly, 'it's just as well to have a man in the house.' 'He can rest on the Chesterfield in the drawing-room,' Ethel added. 'Then if he's wanted----' 'Yes, yes,' Leonora agreed. 'And tell him he's very kind.' At midnight, Fred was reading in the drawing-room, the man in the house, the ultimate fount of security for seven women. Bessie, having refused positively to go to bed, slept in a chair in the kitchen, her heels touching the scrap of hearthrug which lay like a little island on the red tiles in front of the range. Rose and Millicent had retired to bed till three o'clock. Ethel, as the eldest, stayed with her mother. When the hall-clock sounded one, meaning half past twelve, Leonora glanced at her daughter, who reclined on the sofa at the foot of the beds; the girl had fallen into a doze.