It was inconsequent language; but Lord Darsham knew well enough what she meant by it. He had felt that if being mixed up with business and Mr. Werner's affairs, and Mrs. Werner's adversity, included executions for debt, and interviews with such men as Mr. Forde, and taking the sole charge of his cousin and her children for life, then indeed he had become involved in an affair much more disagreeable and of considerably greater magnitude than could prove pleasant, and he had felt compassion for himself at being placed in such a situation. But Dolly, the Dolly he remembered when she was but a tiny bit of a child--in the days in which his cousin Leonora called her Sunbeam--had put the matter in its true light before him. If he was going to do anything for his cousin, he ought to do it efficiently. Dolly, as he himself said, hit hard; but she did hit fairly. As she put it, he was free to do or he was free to leave undone; but he was not free to allow Leonora to feel his kindness a burden, her position insecure. No, Dolly was right; the matter ought to be put on a proper footing. It would never do for him to pay this, that, and the other, and in his heart feel Mrs. Werner, whom he once wished to marry, was spending too much money. Even in that matter of dress, Dolly's common sense had stepped in to the rescue. "Mrs. Mortomley," he said at length, "will you go with Leonora to Dassell, and when I have arranged affairs here so far as they are capable of arrangement, I can follow you and we shall be able together to decide on our future plans?" "I should not like to go," Dolly answered; "but if she and you wish it I will go." As it proved, however, nothing on earth was further from Leonora's desires. "I cannot return to Dassell yet," she said to her friend. "Mamma's questions would kill me. Dolly, will you take me home with you, to-morrow?" "Aye, that I will, darling," answered the brave little woman, utterly regardless of ways and means in her anxiety to pleasure that distracted heart. "Stay with me for a little while, please," whispered Mrs. Werner. She was afraid, now she had once looked upon the face of her trouble, of being left to contemplate it through the darksome hours of the summer night. "I am going to sleep on the sofa, and if you want me at any hour or minute you have but to say 'Dolly.'" Next morning a curious discovery was made. Mrs. Werner's jewellery, which she never took with her to Dassell, had all disappeared. This led to an investigation of the contents of the plate closet, which seemed extremely short of silver, but this Williams explained by stating that when the family went to Brighton the previous winter, his master had for greater security removed the bulk of the plate to his bankers. These matters were not mentioned to Mrs. Werner, but they filled Lord Darsham with a terrible uneasiness.