Jack did not attend to this foreboding: his mind was full of Cuckoopint. “Were you with him when he died, Jack?” asked Brancepeth, who felt a morbid interest in Cocky’s end. Jack nodded. “Yes; he said ‘damn’; they told me to go on the bed and kiss him, but he wouldn’t; he said ‘damn.’” “Poor devil!” sighed Brancepeth with a twinge in his conscience like neuralgia. “Well, you’ve a long minority,” he added as he kissed the child again. “Things’ll pull round and get straight in all these years, but I’m afraid you’ll run amuck when you’re your own master, you naughty little beggar. I don’t know though, I think you’ve got grit in you.” Jack meditated profoundly. Then he whispered in his elder’s ears, “If I’m all that grandpa’ was mayn’t I live without mammy somewhere? Take Cuckoopint and Boo and live with ’oo?” Brancepeth shook his head with a sigh. “No, Jack, you’ll never live with me. At least----” he paused as a certain possibility crossed his mind. “As for your mother,” he added, “well, you’ll see as much of her as _she_ wishes, wherever you live. You won’t see more.” Jack’s face puckered up ready for a good cry; his position did not seem to him changed in any of its essentials. “And Cuckoopint?” he said piteously. “They’ll sell Cuckoopint probably,” said Brancepeth. “But I’ll try and buy him and keep for you; you’re not big enough to ride him yet.” Jack threw his arms about his friend’s throat. “I do love ’oo, Harry. Oh, I _do_ love ’oo!” Brancepeth pressed the boy to him fondly; he knew the caress was chiefly for the sake of Cuckoopint. Still it was sweet to him. “And that poor devil died with a bad word in his mouth,” he thought; and something as like remorse as any modern person can feel stirred in him. The widowed duchess could not see her Parisian creditor at her own house. It would be known that he came there, and would look very odd at such a time, and might awaken her brother’s suspicions. She ordered him to meet her at the house of a famous Court dressmaker, a woman who had been often useful to her in more agreeable appointments and more interesting embarrassments. She went out alone on foot, ostensibly to church, deeply veiled of course, at ten o’clock on the Sunday morning which followed her husband’s funeral. The Court dressmaker lived in a private house in Green Street, and she had not far to go. There, in a perfectly safe seclusion, she awaited the arrival of her creditor.