“Do not think that I am complaining that you have not been down here. I fully understand that your father, having no occupation, is much at home, perhaps _too_ much at home, and can’t bear you out of his sight--which is natural, and that to come and go to the Holt Farm would take four hours--hours for which you would be called on to account. And you dared not venture--dared not deceive him. Deceive him no longer in _any way_, Maddie. Send me a wire, and he shall know all before to-morrow night.” Madeline read this letter over slowly, with rapidly changing colour. Some sentences she perused two or three times, and when she came to the last word, she recommenced at the beginning--then she folded it up, put it into its envelope, thrust it into her dressing-case, and turned the key. She was a good deal disturbed; you could read that by her face, as she went and stood in the window, playing with the charms on her bangle. She had a colour in her cheeks and a frown upon her brow. How impatient Laurence was! Why would he not give her time? What was three months to prepare papa? And was it _really_ three months? It seemed more like three weeks. Yes, April; and this was the beginning of July. Her eyes slowly travelled round the luxurious apartment, with its pale blue silk hangings, inlaid satin-wood furniture, and Persian carpet, her toilet-table loaded with silver bottles and boxes, a large silver-framed mirror, draped in real lace, the silver-backed brushes, the cases of perfume; and she thought with a shudder of the poor little room at No. 2, with its rickety table, shilling glass, and jug without a handle. Deliberately, she stood before the dressing-table, and deliberately studied her reflection in the costly mirror. How different she looked to poor, haggard, shabby Mrs. Wynne, the slave of a sick husband and a screaming baby, with all the cares of a miserable home upon her young shoulders; with no money in her purse, no hope in her heart, no future, and no friends! Here she beheld Miss West, radiant with health and beauty, her abundant hair charmingly arranged by the deft-fingered Josephine, her pretty, slim figure shown off by a simply made but artistic twenty-guinea gown; her little watch was set in brilliants, her fingers were glittering with the same. She had just risen from a dainty lunch, where she was served by two powdered footmen and the clerical butler. Her carriage is even now waiting at the door, through the open window she can hear the impatient stamping of her six-hundred-guinea horses.