This cry, the outcome of months, and even years, of a perpetual grief to Mrs. Dorriman, was an entirely new light to her brother, whose coarser view of life was that so long as money, food, and clothes were forthcoming it did not matter from whom they came. He was also one of the men who imagine that a woman has no business with money; who conceive that they are not fitted by nature for disposing of any investment or even controlling their income beyond that portion of it allotted to them for the payment of a butcher's bill, or the purchase of some more or less frivolous article of wearing apparel. He stared at her in silence, conscious that this new phase of her character must be thought over when she was not there. Then he said: "Write for those papers; there is nothing in them to injure your husband in your eyes. He did think about you." "Then why did Inchbrae not belong to me? When he told me--at least I _think_ he told me--it was mine, and you sold it, how could he think of me and not leave me independent? If Inchbrae was mine how could you sell it and me never consenting?" "Anne," said Mr. Sandford, "till the papers come we will drop the subject--when they come you will understand. Read the other telegram." He spoke with difficulty, and Mrs. Dorriman in haste opened the yellow missive on her lap, conscious of neglect in another direction. It was from Grace. "All sorts of complications here--can you not come or send some one who can help Margaret? Her husband ill." Then all was forgotten but this new anxiety. Mrs. Dorriman felt as though life just now was a great deal too much for her. Her own affairs were of great interest to her--then the papers, her brother, and now Margaret. "She does not say what sort of help is wanted, and why did Margaret not telegraph herself?" This was Mr. Sandford; his sister sat thinking and thinking, not coming any nearer a solution, looking helplessly straight before her. "She has Jean," she said at length. Mr. Sandford made no answer. He leaned back in his chair thinking, and it was evident from the expression of his face that his thoughts were very painful to him; then he said, slowly: "There is a man I dislike, and, for the matter of that, he dislikes me, but he is the only person I can think of who can help Margaret just now. His name is Stevens. He was Drayton's manager, and left him because Drayton would not take his advice about an investment I recommended." "That does not say much for his wisdom," said Mrs. Dorriman, who had a blind belief as regarded her brother's financial capabilities. "It showed his wisdom," said Mr. Sandford, shortly. "The investment was a risky one, if not a bad one." Mrs. Dorriman looked at her brother with wide-open eyes of astonishment. Mr. Sandford gave a short laugh, in which there was not any mirth. After a moment or two he said, "Telegraph to this man and ask him to go to Wandsworth at once."