‘I think you forget, Henry,’ interposed his wife, ‘that Arthur is not very rich, and to live in London with five children is rather expensive work. Their weekly bills must amount to something terrific. I don’t wonder at his being anxious to get them all off into the country. He talks of going to Switzerland.’ ‘Switzerland! Bosh!’ exclaimed Henry Hindes. ‘Why don’t he bring the lot of them to The Old Hall? There’s plenty of room for them here! I should like to see the children running about! The place has been infernally dull since you sent the girls away. Just write and tell Arthur that the old place is at his disposal whenever he likes. Why didn’t they come here from the beginning? What was the obstacle?’ ‘_You_ were, Henry!’ said Hannah, looking at him steadily. ‘Have you forgotten that already?’ The man shivered, and turned away. But, the next moment, he was braving it out. ‘_You_ were, you mean, confound you!’ he retorted. ‘But if I choose to have my brother here, I shall do so without asking your leave, and that I tell you.’ ‘I don’t think he would care to accept your invitation now,’ she said, ‘for you have behaved so rudely to him--once at the theatre and yesterday, when his friend was present,--that he would, I fancy, be rather afraid of subjecting himself to the daily risk of renewing such scenes. Arthur told me this afternoon that--’ ‘What?--what?’ cried Hindes, quickly, ‘what did he tell you? He doesn’t suspect, does he, Hannah--he doesn’t think--you haven’t _told_ him,’ he continued, grasping her arm as if he held it in a vice. ‘You haven’t betrayed me--speak, speak, for God’s sake! Don’t keep me in suspense!’ He looked so abject as he put the question with trembling eagerness, that her heart went out to him with a great burst of pity. He was a murderer--but she loved him. ‘No, no, darling!’ she replied, with unwonted tenderness, as she bent down and kissed his haggard face, ‘how can you think so for a moment? I shall never, never betray you, Harry; not even at the bar of Heaven. If I am brought up there as witness against you, I will go to hell sooner than open my mouth. Don’t think it of me! You are not safer with God Himself than you are with me, my poor Harry!’ ‘I know it, I know it!’ he muttered; ‘but why can’t Arthur come here, then?’