“I should send in my account at once to the executors,” said the lady, eying the carpet and debating inwardly how much it would cost her to replace it with a new one. “Mince and Lang are acting in the matter.” Mrs. Marjoy frowned and fidgeted in her chair. “How much have you charged?” she asked. “Thirty pounds or so.” “Make it fifty, dear; dead men can afford to pay. I am sure you were backward and forward enough.” “I think it is only fair,” said the doctor, “that one should recuperate one’s self from the wealthy for the amount of time one has to waste gratuitously on the poor. It is an extraordinary thing, but whenever I get a bad diphtheria case it is always in a cottage, and one gets nothing out of it.” “I thought the Robinsons’ baby was really going to have whooping-cough at last,” added Mrs. Marjoy, “but it turned out only a cold. That would have been a good case, James; people are always ridiculously anxious about an only child.” The doctor sipped his tea. “I think I might charge old Gildersedge’s estate sixty guineas,” he observed. “I spared the daughter any inquiries about that last attack of syncope.” “His death lies at her door,” said Mrs. Marjoy, pursing up her mouth. “Infamous wench—attacking an old man on his death-bed. Nothing more has been seen of her; I suppose she has gone back to that young blackguard of a Strong.” “At all events, Zeus Gildersedge did not leave her a farthing.” “Vice must be suppressed,” quoth Mrs. Marjoy, with irritable unction. Judith Strong had heard in Saltire of Zeus Gildersedge’s death, but she had kept the news from Joan, knowing that Gabriel’s wife had had sufficient sorrow since the autumn. The same day that the old man was buried in Saltire churchyard, Judith had ordered out her dog-cart and persuaded her father to drive with her towards the sea. Judith seemed to be the one being in the world for whom John Strong had any sentimental respect. The merchant was a hard man, even as many men are hard who have buffeted their way to the van in their strenuous and materialistic struggle of the day. The aggressive and self-reliant elements of his nature had been exaggerated to a degree that rendered him often offensive to folk of finer fibre. John Strong’s vindictiveness towards his son had originated largely from outraged vanity and imbittered pride. It was not so much the offence, but the destructive and thorough sincerity of the deed that had made John Strong so implacable a Minos. Doubtless he would have ignored a guarded indiscretion. Gabriel’s whole-hearted enthusiasm in consummating his own social overthrow had maddened his father, to whom prudence was one of the prime virtues.