He pointed to the written subscription list which they had been looking over. ‘Life let us Cherish, £100,’ stood inscribed on the page. ‘Do you think I don’t know what hand traced that?’ ‘But you won’t tell, please!’ said Adrienne. ‘Ah, you have confessed. No; I will not tell, unless I think it would be for your good.’ ‘Nonsense! But was it not nice and generous in that girl?’ persisted Adrienne, who always would talk to Sebastian, much more than he liked, about Helena. ‘Yes; it was. But she has a generous disposition,’ he admitted, still looking affectionately at his favourite inscription. The celebrated twenty-five pounds spoken of by Adrienne--it is lucky that money has not an organised nervous system, or it might suffer keenly under the touch of some fingers!--was committed by Mr. Spenceley the elder to Mr. Spenceley the younger, with the remark that he wondered how much longer people who had honestly earned their money would be expected to pour it out like water ‘in that way;’ and the request that he would deliver it into the hands of Sebastian Mallory, the treasurer. Mr. Frederick Spenceley, who did not appear to find business so engrossing as his father, strolled down to the committee-rooms, arriving on the scene of action some ten minutes or quarter of an hour before any signs of action had begun to manifest themselves. The well-known _mauvais quart d’heure_ may be evil in many ways, kinds, and degrees of badness. Frederick Spenceley had no intention of spending his fifteen minutes more aimlessly or mischievously than usual; but his guardian demon had ordained that they should be consumed more reprehensibly, perhaps, than all the rest of his existence put together. There was no one in the first room, no one in the second room; in the third room was a solitary figure standing in one of the windows--a figure in black cloth clothes, with a bundle of documents under one arm--the figure of Mr. James Hoyle. There were two windows to the room. Mr. Spenceley, jingling the coin in his pockets, strolled up to the other one, and stood at it, whistling to himself, and looking out upon the prospect--what there was of it. The two windows were on the same side of the room, and looked upon a kind of open yard, separated from the street by a low wall. It was a slanting street, like so many others in that up-and-down town, Thanshope. Exactly opposite the window in which Spenceley stood was a gate, through which any one coming to the committee-rooms must pass, and, going under the windows (to the right) of the other two rooms, at last arrive at the door opening into the Ladies’ Committee-room. There was also a separate door, leading into the second room, or clerk’s office, where Myles Heywood and his fellow-clerk sat.