“Two o’clock, Tommy; terribly late!” Hereford drew over the other big chair. “Since you are up, Nell, sit out a bit longer with me, will you?” He would think she had been weeping at losing Patricia, no doubt imagine that she had come directly from Patricia’s room. He said: “The little girl _will_ leave an empty place and we are going to be awfully lonely. We’ll have to go on a new honeymoon trip, Nell!” Mrs. Hereford sank down in her chair and tried to smile. “Have you been mourning here all the evening for Patricia, Tommy?” “No, only been down about half an hour.” He smoked without looking at her, and again she wondered whether it were possible that he knew she had been in the other room with Ralph. “I’ve been in the music room for some time. It was full of memories of our jolly times, of dances, of Patricia’s coming-out ball.” But Hereford did not appear to have heard what she said. His face had settled into the harsh gravity and look of displeasure that she always connected with his son. “What is the matter, Tommy, tell me?” “The old story--Jack!” Mrs. Hereford, with a breath of keen relief, put her hand on his knees, and sat back in her chair. “Poor Tommy! It must be something perfectly terrible for you to look as you look and to sit here like this half the night.” “It is the worst.” “What is it? Tell me.” “Blackmail!” And clear as ice came to her the remembrance of Ramsay’s words: “_There are women in men’s lives who make dreadful scandals for them. There is blackmail--_” “It is a relief to speak to you, Nell. When Jack was at Cambridge he got mixed up with the worst kind of woman and made some sort of marriage with her. Drunk, of course. She has trailed him ever since, followed him even to France; been bleeding him to death. The money you and I have given him has gone to her. He’s been keeping her quiet until now. He told me this last night, here in this room, and he asked for money to shut her up, as she threatened on Patricia’s wedding day to give out a flashy story to the newspapers and drag us all in.” Mrs. Hereford never stirred. “I fairly kicked him out of the house,” her husband said. He heard her ask: “But you refused to give him money?” “Yes, and I told him all the newspapers in the United States could print his story if they liked. It was his own life!” Mrs. Hereford half rose, murmuring: “Oh, and he needed money like _that_! Tommy, like _that_, and you didn’t give it to him?” “I told him if he went to you or Patricia I would disinherit him. I told him to get his lawyer. It was up to him. If you begin to give to blackmail you are lost. Let him take what is coming to him--he has made his own life!” She gave a cry, sank more deeply into her chair, and burst into tears, her head on the arm of the chair. Her husband bent over, reassuring her, telling her not to worry; Jack would get a lawyer and he had been a brute to tell her when she was so utterly done up and tired.