So far as Neaera knew, Peckton and Manchester were the only places in which George Neston was likely to seek for traces of her. Liverpool, though remote from Peckton, was uncomfortably near Manchester. Every day now had great value. If she could get Mrs. Bort away to some remote spot as soon as might be, she gained no small advantage in her race against time and George Neston. "If she will only go to Glentarroch, he will never find her." Glentarroch was the name of a little retreat in remote Scotland, whither Mr. Witt had been wont to betake himself for rest and recreation. It was Neaera's now. It was a beautiful place, which was immaterial, and a particularly inaccessible one, which was most material. Would not Mrs. Bort's despotic instincts lead her to accept an invitation to rule over Glentarroch? Neaera could not afford to pity the hapless wights over whom Mrs. Bort would rule. Mrs. Bort received Neaera in a way most unbecoming to a pensioner. "Well, Nery," she said, "what brings you here? No good, I'll be bound. Where's your mourning?" Neaera said that she thought resignation to Heaven's will not a subject of reproach, and that she came to ask a favour of Mrs. Bort. "Ay, you come to me when you want something. That's the old story." Neaera remembered that Mrs. Bort had often taken her own view of what the supplicant wanted, and given something quite other than what was asked; but, in spite of this unpromising opening, she persevered, and laid before Mrs. Bort a dazzling picture of the grandeur waiting her at Glentarroch. "And I shall be so much obliged. Really, I don't know what the servants--the girls, especially--may be doing." "Carryings-on, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Bort. "Why don't you go yourself, Nery?" "Oh, I can't, indeed. I--I must stay in London." "Nasty, cold, dull little place it sounds," said Mrs. Bort. "Oh, of course I shall consider all that----" "He--he!" Mrs. Bort sniggered unpleasantly. "So it ain't sech a sweet spot, as ye call it, after all?" Neaera recovered herself without dignity, and stated that she thought of forty pounds a year and all found. "Ah, if I knowed what you was at, Nery!" Neaera intimated that it was simply a matter of mutual accommodation. "And there's really no time to be lost," she said, plaintively. "I'm being robbed every day." "Widows has hard times," said Mrs. Bort. And Neaera did not think it necessary to say how soon her hard times were coming to an end. "Come agin to-morrer afternoon, and I'll tell ye," was Mrs. Bort's ultimatum. "And mind you don't get into mischief." "Why afternoon?" asked Neaera. "'Cause I'm washing," said Mrs. Bort, snappishly. "That's why." Neaera in vain implored an immediate answer. Mrs. Bort said a day could not matter, and that, if Neaera pressed her farther, she should consider it an indication that something was "up," and refuse to go at all. Neaera was silenced, and sadly returned to her hotel.