"Did Mr. Capella consult you when he went to Naples? Are you not mistress here? Take my advice. Give the majority of your servants a holiday. Close your house, or, better still, have every room dismantled on the pretence of a thorough renovation. Leave it to paperhangers, plasterers, and caretakers. The rector may be persuaded to allow Miss Layton to come with you to London, where you should visit your dressmaker, for you can now dispense with mourning. When your husband returns from Naples, let him rage to the top of his bent. By that time I may be able to spare Mr. Hume to look after both of you for a week or so. Permit your husband to join you when he humbly seeks permission--not before. Believe me, Mrs. Capella, if you have strength of will to adopt my programme in its entirety, the trip to Naples may have results wholly unexpected by the runaway." "Really, Margaret, Mr. Brett's advice seems to me to be very sensible. It happens, too, that my father needs a change of air, and I think we could both persuade him to come with us to the coast." Helen, like all well regulated young Englishwomen, quickly took a reasonable view of the problem. Already Capella's heroics and his wife's lamentations began to appear ridiculous. Margaret looked wistfully at both of them. "You do not understand why my husband has gone to Naples," she said slowly, seemingly revolving something in her mind. "I think I can guess his motive," said the barrister. "Tell me your explanation of the riddle," she answered lightly, though a shadow of fear crossed her eyes. "Soon after your marriage he imagined that he discovered certain facts connected with your family--possibly relative to your brother's death--which served to estrange him from you. Whatever they may be, whether existent or fanciful, you are in no way responsible. He has gone to Naples to obtain proofs of his suspicions, or knowledge. He will come back to terrorise you, perhaps to seek revenge for imaginary wrongs. Therefore, I say, do not meet him half-way by sitting here, blanched and fearful, until it pleases him to return. Compel him to seek you. Let him find you at least outwardly happy and contented, careless of his neglect, and more pleased than otherwise by his absence. Tell him to try Algiers in August and Calcutta in September." Margaret's eyes were widely distended. Her mobile features expressed both astonishment and anxiety. She covered her face with her hands, in an attitude of deep perplexity. They knew she was wrestling with the impulse to take them wholly into confidence. At last she spoke: