"You think so?" said Mr. Forde with a nasty laugh. "They'll know more about that in six months' time. Eh! Kleinwort?" "Most like," agreed the German. "No, madame, a man had better by much be dead than bankrupt. I, Kleinwort, tell you no lie. You do not understand; how should you? Mr. Mortomley does not understand neither; how should he? You talk to him. You say, it is best we should use our two brains to avoid so great disgrace; you think over all the good friends who you own; you see what money can be found. That will be better than bankruptcy; that word so ugly, bankruptcy--bad--bad." "Let us go into the works, Kleinwort," suggested Mr. Forde at this juncture, and he walked out into the garden followed by his friend. "I will fetch the key," said Mrs. Mortomley, and having done so, she would have given it to them, but Mr. Forde asked, "Is there no person who can go with us?" "I--I will go with you myself," she hesitated, not liking to confess Rupert was not about the grounds, which fact she had learned during her absence from the room; "I thought perhaps you wished to be alone." Up the laurel walk they paced, Mr. Kleinwort going into ecstasies over the flowers; Mr. Forde muttering, "Pretty penny it must cost to keep up this place;" while the scent of heliotrope and late mignonette pervading the air, made Dolly feel faint and sick as did the very peace and beauty of the scene. "Where are all the men?" asked Mr. Forde, as he beheld the deserted buildings. "They have gone for the evening," Mrs. Mortomley answered. "Excepting at very busy times, they never work later than half-past five." "Nice management!" commented Mr. Forde. "I believe that is the usual hour in most factories," she ventured. He did not contradict her, but contented himself with shaking his head as though he would imply that it was useless further to comment on the bad management of Homewood, and walked about the premises, peering into this vat and that cask, as if he expected to come suddenly upon a mine of silver, or a heap of gold dust. Anything funnier to an uninterested spectator than Mr. Forde looking about the colour works, to see what Mortomley had done with his money, could not possibly be conceived; but, then, there chanced to be no uninterested spectator,--not even Messrs Lang and Hankins, who happened to be making up some goods accounts in a little sentry-box of an office that stood near the outer gates. "Who are they?" asked Hankins of his companion, who, while thrusting his arms into his coat which he had thrown off for greater convenience during his arithmetical calculations, answered, "One of them, the biggest, is Forde. Let me get away before they see us! he asks as many questions as an Old Bailey lawyer and about as civilly, and I am afraid his being here means no good to our governor!"