If his words conveyed any meaning to her she made no sign of understanding it. After sitting for a few moments lost in thought she rose, and saying "I shall go at once to a solicitor," inclined her head to the accountants and Mr. Benning, and left the office, before Mr. Asherill could open the door for her to pass out. That same evening Mr. Meadows received a note from his employer containing various directions and instructions. After the signature came a postscript, "How does it happen _Mrs._ Mortomley's letters have not been forwarded to me? See to this _at once_, and never let me have to complain of such negligence again." For with all the flocks and herds of the Mortomley Estate held in his hand, Mr. Swanland's soul sickened, because of that two pounds four shillings he could never now hope to liquidate. CHAPTER XI. MRS. MORTOMLEY'S FORTUNE. Mr. Leigh, Mortomley's solicitor, was all that in an early chapter of this story Mr. Asherill stated him to be, and perhaps a little more. He was honest and honourable, a kind father, a devoted husband, an affectionate son, and a staunch friend, but he was human, and being human his reception of Mrs. Mortomley proved cool and formal. No one knew more of Mortomley's estate than he--not even Mortomley himself. His father had managed the legal affairs of Mortomley's father, and he personally had been _au fait_ with every in and out of the son's hopes and disappointments, successes and failures, gains and losses, liabilities and expectations, until the death of Richard Halling. At that time, some outspoken advice was given on the one side, which caused a certain amount of vexation on the other; and although Mr. Leigh had never ceased to act as the colour-maker's solicitor, still from the day that grievous connection--so madly continued with the General Chemical Company began--he knew so little of the actual position of his former friend, that when Mortomley walked into his office, out of which he was subsequently dragged by a clerk from St. Vedast Wharf, and stated it was absolutely necessary for him to lay the state of his affairs before his creditors, the lawyer stared at him aghast. Then after that patched up truce with fate, the terms of which were evolved out of the workings of Mr. Forde's ingenuity, things went on as before, and he had no more idea his client was on the verge of bankruptcy, until he saw that paragraph previously mentioned in the 'Times,' than he had of going into the 'Gazette' himself. Well might Mr. Leigh consider he had been hardly done by. At least he was an honest man, and yet Mr. Mortomley evidently preferred that a black sheep should manage his affairs. Faithfully, through every chance and change of life, he had dealt by his client; and now when he really might have made some amount of money worth having out of his estate, that client pitched him over.