"Ill," repeated Mr. Forde; "and so am I very ill, yet I have to be about. I shall have to face my directors to-morrow over that villain's affairs. Sick or well I shall have to be in the City. Don't talk to me about illness. I must and I will see Mrs. Werner, and you may go and tell her so." "If you will please to walk into the dining-room, sir, I will deliver your message," said the butler. He really was afraid of leaving Mr. Forde alone with the corpse, uncertain whether, in default of the living man, he might not wreak his vengeance on the dead, and it was with a gasp of relief he saw Mr. Forde out of the study, and locked the door behind him. "Ask Mrs. Mortomley to speak to me for a minute," he whispered to Mrs. Werner's maid, and when Dolly came to him on the landing, he told her all Mr. Forde had said. Dolly listened to the end, then she answered, "Tell Mr. Forde from me, that if he waits in this house for ever, he shall never speak to Mrs. Werner, but that if he has any communication to make, Lord Darsham will see him this evening at eight o'clock." Downstairs went Williams with this message, which Dolly, leaning over the banisters, heard him deliver in less curt language. "I know nothing of Lord Darsham," answered Mr. Forde, walking up and down the hall. "I have had no transactions with him, but I have with that fellow," an intimation indicating Werner lying dead in the study. "He has robbed us, and ruined me, and by--I will see his wife." "Williams," rang out Dolly's voice at this juncture, clear and shrill, and yet with an undertone of intensified passion in it, "if that person insists on remaining in a house where there is so much misery, send for a policeman. I will take the responsibility." And forthwith Dolly retreated to Mrs. Werner's dressing-room, and bolted the doors of that and her friend's apartment. She had once been brave, but the days and the weeks and the months had been draining her courage. Physically, she felt she was not strong enough to encounter one of the people who had compassed her husband's ruin; and though she would have fought for Leonora till she died, still her woman's nature warned her to shun a fight if possible. "You will go now please, sir," urged poor Williams, "and come back and see his lordship to-night." Whereupon Mr. Forde anathematized his lordship, and asked, "How does that woman, that wife of Mortomley's, come here?" "She was sent for, sir; my mistress has been quieter since her arrival. They are old friends." "Humph," ejaculated Mr. Forde; "then any fool can tell where Henry Werner's money went." And he permitted himself to be edged out to the door-step by Williams, who took an early opportunity of saying he was wanted and of shutting the door hastily on that unwelcome visitor.