"It's what I always knew would come of it. Understand now, Margaret, once for all, that unless you go back with me I'll have the door closed against you. I'd turn the key and close the bolts myself, though it were the coldest night in winter." "But remember I have a right to come," Margaret said, blazing a little. "You have no right to lock me out of my mother's house." "Right or not right, you shall not enter till I'm forced to let you in. I've had unbelievers long enough about the place, but when it comes to actresses, too, it's time I made a stand, and I'll make it. Now, then, are you coming?" she asked, in a threatening voice. "No, I'm not." "Very well, then, the rest is on your own head." Hannah opened the door and hesitated. "I'm sure I've had enough of you," she said, as she went down the stairs. Margaret flew after her. "Oh, tell my mother that I love her," she cried, entreatingly. "Pretty love!" said Hannah, scornfully, as she stalked along the little hall and out into the street. "Hannah--" "Pretty love!" repeated Hannah from the pavement, "I've no patience with it," and, with her head in the air, she marched up the street. Margaret went back to the drawing-room and threw herself down on her knees beside the sofa. "Oh, what can I do?" she cried. "If I had only some one to help me! This is what it means--this is why they want it so," she went on incoherently to herself. "Human beings are not strong enough to manage their lives alone--it is why all the mistakes are made. I must write to her at once. Oh, my dear, dear mother." She went to the writing-table on one side of the room. There was a worn-out old blotting-book, and in it a sheet of crumpled note-paper. She smoothed it, and with a wretched, spiky pen poured out her heart in a letter, and felt better for it. Her mother would understand, her mother always did, and would trust her and wait. How she wished that she had never left the farm, that she had borne Hannah's scoldings, borne anything rather than deserted the dear home of all her life. She only realized, too, now that she was away from her, that her mother was growing old--how foolish it seemed to miss any time at all with her. But Hannah was not to be borne. Day after day, week after week, since her father went she had tormented Margaret, and save by fits and starts her mother had been too well lost in her own dreams even to notice it, except, of course, when there had been scenes, and these were almost as trying to Mrs. Vincent as to Margaret. After all, she had done a wise thing, especially since Mr. Garratt had written, and her father was not coming home just yet. "It's only the beginning that is so difficult," she said to herself, "presently it will be better." She looked at the clock on the mantel-piece. The Lakemans must be safe in Scotland by this time; Hannah was on her way back to Chidhurst. She wondered whether Tom Carringford was in London, and if he had thought of her at all yesterday when he