"Don't you think I can take care of myself?--am I so old, feeble, and drivelling as that? Are they right at the office, after all?" he added in a lower tone. "I shouldn't like to be left here all alone," murmured Ann Packet; "particularly after there's been robberies, and----" There was the rattle of cab-wheels in the street, coming nearer and nearer towards the house. "Hark!" said Mattie and Mr. Hinchford in one breath. The rattling ceased before the door, the cab stopped, Mr. Hinchford pointed to the door, and gasped, and gesticulated. "Open, o--open the door!--he has met with an accident!" "No, no, he has only taken a cab to get here earlier, and escape the wet," said Mattie, opening the door with a beating heart, nevertheless. Sidney Hinchford, safe and sound, was already out of the cab and close to the door. Mattie met him with a bright smile of welcome, to which his sombre face did not respond. He came into the shop, stern and silent, and then looked towards his father. "I thought you might have gone to bed, father," he said. "Bed!" ejaculated Mr. Hinchford, in disgust; "what has--what has----" "Come up-stairs, I wish to speak to you." Father and son went up-stairs to their room, leaving Mattie at the open door. The cab still remained drawn up there; the cabman stood by the horse's head, stolid as a judge in his manifold capes. "Are you waiting for anything?" asked Mattie. "For the gemman, to be sure." "Going back again?" "He says so--I spose it's all right," he added dubiously; "you've no back door which he can slip out of?" "Slip out of!" cried the disgusted Mattie, slamming the front door in his face for his impudent assertion. Meanwhile Sidney Hinchford was facing his father in the drawing-room. "Sit down and take the news coolly, sir," he said; "there's nothing gained by putting yourself in a flurry." "N--no, no, my boy, n--no." "I have no time to spare, and I wish to leave you all right before I go." "Go!" "I am going for a day or two, very likely for a week, on a special mission for my employers--that is all that I can tell you without breaking the confidence placed in me--I must go at once." "Bless my soul! what--what can I possibly do without you. Can't I go with you? Can't I--" "You can do nothing but wait patiently for my return, believing that I am safe, and taking care of myself. Why, what are a few days?" "Well, not much after all," said the father, wiping his forehead with his silk-handkerchief, "and there's no danger, of course?" "Not any." "And you are only going----" "A journey of a few days. Try and calm yourself whilst I pack a few things in my portmanteau. There, that's well!" Sidney passed into the other room, leaving his father still struggling with the effects of his astonishment. The portmanteau must have been filled without any regard for neatness, for Sidney in a few minutes returned with it in his hands.