"But there are his portmanteaus!" Mr. Harris exclaimed, and he even rose and went to the window for a second. Well, he was just in time to see Vincent step into the cab, and drive off; and therewith he returned to his place at table, and proceeded, in his usual bland and somewhat patronising manner, to tell Lord Musselburgh of certain experiments he was having made in copper-lustre. He was not in the least concerned about that departing cab; nor did he know that that was the last glimpse of his son he was to have for many and many a day. And meanwhile Lady Musselburgh sate there frightened, and guilty, and silent. And that without reason; for what she had done she had done with the full concurrence and approval of her brother-in-law and her _fiancé_ (as he then was). Yet somehow she seemed to feel herself entirely answerable for all that had happened—for the failure of all her schemes—for the catastrophe that had resulted. And the moment she got outside her brother-in-law’s house, she began and confessed the whole truth to her husband. "But why didn’t you tell Harris?" said he, pausing as if even now he would go back. "Oh, I couldn’t, Hubert; I daren’t!" she said, evidently in great distress. "I was so confident everything would come right—I advised him—I persuaded him to pay the £5,000——" "Oh, nonsense!" was the impatient reply. "A man doesn’t hand over £5,000 unless he is himself convinced that it is worth while. And he got what he bargained for. Those people have gone away; they don’t interfere any more——" "Ah, but that is not all," Lady Musselburgh put in, rather sadly. "I made so sure that Vin would forget—that as soon as the hallucination had worn off a little, he would see what those people really were, and turn his eyes elsewhere: yet apparently he believes in their honesty more firmly than ever—talks of my going and asking their pardon—and the like; and now he has wholly broken away from us—declares he will never be under the same roof with us, or sit down at the same table with us. He has gone over to the other side, he says, because they are poor and friendless. Poor and friendless!" she repeated, with a snap of anger—"living on the fat of the land through their thieving! And yet——"