Rupert walked back to the house and asked Esther to make him some coffee. Whilst she was preparing it, he went softly to his own room, changed his wet clothes, washed, brushed his curly hair, and otherwise made himself presentable; then he went downstairs again and entered the library, where he found coffee awaiting his arrival. "My sister is gone to bed, I suppose," he said to Esther. "Yes, sir, Miss Halling was very tired, and thought you would not be back to-night." "And Mrs. Mortomley?" "She is up still, sir." "I must see her to-night. Will you tell her that I want to speak to her very particularly." "Yes, sir." "What have you been crying about?" asked Rupert suddenly, but the girl turned her head away and made no answer. "Has Mrs. Mortomley been scolding you?" he persisted. At this question Esther broke down altogether. "It--it--is--th--first time my--mistress ever spoke cross to me, sir--," she sobbed. "Well, you needn't allow that fact to vex you," Rupert answered, "for if things go on as they have been doing, you may be very sure it will not be the last. Now go and give her my message, and you will sleep all the better for seeing your mistress again. Depend upon it, she is far more sorry than you by this time." "What a spit-fire temper Dolly is developing," thought the young man, looking uneasily into the blazing fire. "Though it is rather turning the proprieties upside down, I fear I must lecture my aunt," but when Mrs. Mortomley came into the room there was an expression on her face which changed his intention. She had taken off the elaborate dress in which he last beheld her, and exchanged it for a dressing-gown of brilliant scarlet, confined round the waist by a belt of its own material, and showing, in every fold and plait which hung loosely about her figure, how the plump shapeliness which once needed no padding, no adventitious assistance from her dressmaker, had changed to leanness and angles. She had unloosed her hair, she had taken away the great pads and enormous frizettes in which her soul once found such pleasure, and the straight locks fell over her shoulders in a manner as natural as it was unwonted. "Good Heavens, Dolly," exclaimed Rupert, at sight of her, "why do you ever wear scarlet, it makes you look like a ghost, or a corpse." "It is warm," she answered, "and I was very cold. You wanted to see me and I wanted to see you; but tell me your story first." "I have been to Elm Park," he replied, "in order to make up friends with that whited sepulchre, Mr. Dean; and I have succeeded. So much for that which immediately concerns Antonia and myself. After I left Elm Park, I rode round by Leytonstone and called upon Mr. Gibbons. He says that Swanland must act fairly by you and all the creditors; that, in fact, so far as that goes we need feel no uneasiness." "Then, where is the cause for uneasiness?" she enquired.