As he nodded he followed her to the grass outside. "You started to say that you would like something," he ventured. "What was it, Dolly?" "I should really like to be present when you show it to him and tell him that it is for him. Jarvis, I almost lost respect for him once. I almost ceased to love him, but it has all come back. I am proud of him again, and you are responsible for it. Why did you do so much for him?" "Because he is _your_ father!" He nipped the words as they were forming on his lips. Instead, he said aloud: "He is just the man I needed. We are working finely together. You must be present when I tell him about the office; he will be here this afternoon. I will detain him with some pretext or other till three o'clock. Couldn't you be here then?" "Oh yes, and I'd like to bring my mother, Uncle John, and George." "A good idea," Saunders said. "We'll have some fresh cider and cakes--the old-fashioned gingerbread sort." When they had reached her horse, he held out his hand for her foot. She placed it in it, and he lightly lifted her to the saddle. He stood at the gate and saw her vanish down the road. "Why didn't I say what I want to say? Why didn't I tell her how I feel and throw myself on her mercy? What is it that always checks me? Is it Mostyn? My God! does she still love him, and will he always stand between me and my happiness?" CHAPTER XV For Mostyn the week which ensued after his wife's secret elopement was a period of sheer mental torture. Every minute he expected the startling tidings to reach his friends and associates. Every morning at breakfast he studied the crafty and sullen face of old Mitchell and the swarthy visages of the servants to see if suspicions of the truth were dawning. At the bank he tried to overhear the conversations of the bookkeepers, sometimes fancying that a burst of low laughter or a whispered colloquy had him for their incentive. He was sure that it was little less than a miracle that the matter had not leaked out. With Delbridge getting into harness at his desk, he had considerable time on his hands, which he spent in long nervous walks, generally in the suburbs of the city. For that week he wholly neglected his child. There was something unbearable in the thought of the boy's future social status, left in the care, as he was, of an all but witless grandfather and a father upon whom the contempt of the public was so soon to fall. Infinitely horrible was the reflection that little Dick would inevitably grow into a comprehension of the family calamity and inquire as to its causes. It was Saturday night, eight days after the elopement. Mostyn had that day been irritated--that is, as much as a man in his plight could be irritated by any extraneous incident--by Delbridge's open criticism of the negligent condition of some of his accounts. The work of going over the books with his successor in rectifying really glaring mistakes detained him at the bank till late at night.