Things were not prospering with the city, or with William Arkell. That the trade was going gradually down to ruin, to all but total extermination, he felt sure of now; and he bitterly regretted that Travice had cast in his lot with it. He had designed to send Travice to Oxford, to cause him to embrace one of the learned professions; but Travice had elected to follow his father, and Mr. Arkell had yielded--all just as it had been with himself in his own youth. None, save William Arkell himself, knew the care that was upon him, or how his property was dwindling down. Ever and anon there would come flashing a gleam of improvement in the trade, and rather large orders would come in, whispering hope for the future; but the orders and the hope soon faded again. Peter entered the iron gates, and was turning to the left to the manufactory, when he saw Mr. Arkell at the dining-room window; so he went across to the house. "No need to look for me abroad to-day, Peter," said his cousin, opening the dining-room door and meeting him in the hall. "I am not well enough to go out." "What's the matter?" asked Peter. "I don't know; I have had shivering fits all the morning--can do nothing but sit over this hot fire. Charlotte thinks it must be some sort of illness coming on; but I suppose it's only a cold. So you have got back at last?" "Now, just," answered Peter, sitting down on the other side of the fire; "Travice said nothing about your illness; he was at the station." "Was he? I did not know he had gone out. Oh, he thinks it's nothing, I dare say; I hope it will be nothing. What's this?" Peter had handed him the ten-pound note. "It is what you paid to Mr. Fauntleroy while I was away; and bitterly vexed I am, to think he should have applied to you. I met Kenneth in leaving the station, and heard of it from him. But, William, I want to know why you paid it. Did Fauntleroy hold out any threats to you?" "Something to that effect. He spoke of putting an execution into your house: it would not have done at all, you know, while strangers were in it. I never knew that he had got judgment." "Oh yes, he did," said Peter, bitterly; "he took care of that. I am at his mercy any day, both in goods and person. He forgets, William, the service I rendered him, and my having to pay it: it is nothing but that that has kept me down in life. Put an execution in my house! I wonder where he expects to go to? Not to heaven, I should think?" "He said his client pressed for the money--would not, in fact, wait." "I dare say he did; it's just like him to say it. His client is himself." "No?" exclaimed William Arkell, lifting his head. "I firmly believe it to be so. He is pressing for another ten pounds now; it was due yesterday." "Have you got it for him? If not, why do you give me this?" "I have got it," said Peter; "I have to receive money to-day. Thank you a thousand times, William, for this and all else. How is business?"