"Well?" she queried, after waiting for some minutes, and turning from the window toward the bed. "Well?" she repeated. "If it's going to be a waiting game, we can both play it. I sha'n't leave this room until you sign Dick's check, and you know quite well that I go through with a thing when my mind is made up. It's perfectly disgusting to have to insist like this, but you see, father, it's the only way." She had spoken very quickly, yet very deliberately. She walked over to a table which stood in one of the windows, carefully selected a volume, and, drawing a chair to the side of her father's bed, sat down. Herresford had watched her from under his screwed-up eyelids, and, as she commenced to read, he sighed irritably. "If you'll come back this evening," he whined, after a long pause, "I'll see what I can do. I'm expecting Notley, my lawyer, this morning, and I don't want to be worried. I've a lot of figures to go through. Now, run away, Mary, and I'll think it over." "My dear father, why waste your time and mine? I told you I should not go from this room until I had the money, and I mean it--quite mean it," she added, very quietly. "It's disgraceful that you should treat me in this way. I'll give orders that you are not to be admitted again, unless by my express instructions. What was the amount you mentioned? Five hundred dollars? Do you realize what five hundred dollars really is?" "Five hundred is next to useless. It is disgracefully little for an outfit and general expenses of your grandson." "The boy is a scamp; an idle, horse-racing young vagabond--a thief, too. Have you forgotten that horse he stole? I haven't." "Rubbish, father. The horse belonged to Dick. You gave it to him, and it was his to sell. But we're wasting time. Shall I write the check? Ah! here's the book," and Mrs. Swinton drew it toward her as she seated herself at the desk. She knew his ways so well that in his increasing petulance she saw the coming surrender. "I am going to draw a check for a thousand, father," she said with assumed indifference, and took up a pen as though the matter were settled. "A thousand!--no, five hundred--no, it's too much. Five hundred dollars for a couple of suits of khaki? Preposterous! Fifty would be too much." "Well, the very lowest is fifty, father," she remarked, with a sudden abandonment of irritation, and a new light in her fine eyes. "Ah! that's more like it." "Then, I'll make it fifty." "Fifty!--no, I never said fifty. I said five--too much," and his fingers began to claw upon the coverlet, while his lips and tongue worked as with a palsy. "Fifty dollars! Do you want to ruin me? Make it five, and I'll sign it at once. That's more than I gave you last time." She had commenced the check. The date was filled in, and the name of her son as the payee. "Five, madam--not a penny more. Five!" The inspiration vibrated in her brain. Why not repeat the successful forgery? He would miss five thousand as little as five.