"Yes--really and truly--unless you wish us to go to Dassell. I should not like, I could not bear to take Archie there now." "No, dear, I do not wish you to go to Dassell. We have taken a house at Brighton for a couple of months, and I am going down with the children to-morrow. Come home with me this afternoon, and we can all travel together. That is if Mr. Mortomley is fit to travel. If not you and he must stay for a few days in town till he is able to follow. That is settled, is not it Dolly? I have to pay a visit at Walthamstow and will return for you in less than an hour. You will come, dear." Dolly did not answer verbally. She only put her arms round Mrs. Werner's neck and drawing down her face, kissed it in utter silence. There was no need for much speech between those two women. Dolly had known Leonora Trebasson ever since she herself was born. They had grown up together. They had been friends always, and Mortomley's wife felt no more hesitation about accepting a kindness from Mrs. Werner in her need than Mrs. Werner would have experienced had it been needful for her in the halcyon days of old to ask for shelter and welcome at Homewood. And as the visit was to be paid at Brighton, Dolly did not find the contemplation of Mr. Werner a drawback to the brightness of the picture. Perfectly well she understood that when his wife and family were out of town, he never favoured them with much of his society. Mr. Werner's god was business, and he did not care to absent himself for any lengthened period from the shrine at which he worshipped. "I must just mention this to Archie," Mrs. Mortomley said at last. "I will mention it to him," proposed Mrs. Werner. "We shall never get him to come for his own sake, but he will do so for yours." "Thank you, Lenny," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "It does not signify for whose sake the move is made, so that it is made." "Upon second thoughts," observed Mrs. Werner, "I shall not go on to Walthamstow to-day. I will stay and carry you off with me. You can give me some luncheon and let the horses have a feed, and that will be a far pleasanter arrangement in every way." Dolly laughed and summoned Esther. "Mrs. Werner will lunch here," she said; "and find Mr. Meadows and send him to me." "What do you want with that creature," asked her friend, and Dolly answered, "You shall hear." Mr. Meadows entered the room and bowed solemnly to its occupants. "You wanted me, ma'am," he said, standing just inside the doorway and addressing Mrs. Mortomley. "Yes. I wished to know if you think Mr. Swanland can answer any questions that my husband's creditors may put to him, if Mrs. Werner's horses have a feed of corn--because if not, I must ask her coachman to put up at the public-house." Mr. Meadows turned white with rage at this cool question and the sneer which accompanied it. "That woman is a fiend," he thought, "and will trouble some of our people yet, and serve them right too;" but he answered quietly enough,