"Very well, Dolly," answered Mrs. Werner, humouring her fancy. "You shall be called in good time to-morrow, so as not to be hurried; and if you want to write any letters you will find everything you want in my little room," saying which she pushed aside a curtain and passed into an apartment scarcely larger than a closet, but fitted up with dainty furniture, pretty inlaid cabinets, and a few water-colour drawings. "No one ever comes in here except myself," said Mrs. Werner, "and you will be quite uninterrupted. See here is note-paper and there are envelopes. And--" "Thank you," interrupted Dolly, "but I shall not want to write any letters again for ever," and with one more good-night and one more lingering look at the stately figure, which in the pier-glass she had mentally balanced against her own, Dolly opened the door which gave egress on to the landing, and stepped swiftly and lightly along the passage leading to the apartment where she had left her husband. On the thick carpet the sound of her tread fell noiseless, and failed to disturb the sound sleep into which Mortomley had sunk. When before had she seen him slumber so quietly? Dolly sat down before the fire, and still full of thankfulness for the deliverance from Homewood and its thousand and one petty annoyances, tried to look out over the future and shape her plans. After she had been thus occupied for about half an hour, she suddenly recollected she had not left with Esther an address which should find her at Brighton, and vexed at an omission which might cause even a night's anxiety to a girl who had been so faithful to her, she stole quietly out of the room, intending not merely to send a note to Esther, but also a few lines to Rupert and a letter to Miss Gerace, whose epistles probably had been intercepted by Mr. Swanland. In the apartment of which Mrs. Werner had made her free, the gas was lighted. Dolly turned it up a little, and after searching for a pen to suit her, began her correspondence. For some time she wrote on without interruption. She finished her short note to Esther; she scribbled a few hasty words to "My dear little girl," and was half way through her rambling epistle to Miss Gerace, when her attention was distracted by the sound of a door shut violently, and by hearing Mr. Werner pronounce her husband's name in a tone of the keenest annoyance. "Mortomley!" he exclaimed. "Damn Mortomley!" which, though perhaps not an unusual form of expression, fell cruelly on Dolly's ear. With the pen still in her fingers, she rose from her chair while he went on. "I would rather have lost five hundred pounds than that you should have brought either of them here. A man in business cannot afford to be Quixotic, and I cannot afford to be mixed up with Mortomley or his affairs. They must not stay here, that is flat, and they must not go to Brighton. Make what excuse you like, only get them out of the house."