What was to be done? The dreadful news must be kept from Mrs. Calverley as long as possible; not, as Martin well enough knew, that her feelings towards the dead man would be wounded as almost any other woman's feelings would be wounded by the disclosure; not that in her case it would involve any shattering of the idol, any revulsion of love long concentrated on one earthly object, and at the last finding itself betrayed; but in fear lest the woman's ungovernable temper should break forth and blurt out to the whole world the story of her wrongs, and of her husband's dishonour. There was the other woman too, the poor wretch who had been the sharer of that dishonour, who had been living with a man on whom she had no moral or legal claim, and who even now was all unconscious of the blow which had fallen upon him, cutting him off in the midst of his wickedness, and leaving her to the scorn and reprobation of the world. Martin Gurwood's large-souled pity had time to turn even to this outcast. As he thought of her, he pictured to himself the desolation which would fall upon that little home, and could not help contrasting it with the proper and conventional display of mourning which had already commenced to reign in the house in which he sat. Yes! Mourning as understood by undertakers and at _maisons de deuil_;--which is a very different thing from grief as displayed in red eyelids and swollen cheeks, in numbed feelings and dumb carelessness as to all that may happen--had begun to reign in the mansion in Great Walpole-street. The blinds had all been drawn down, and the servants stole about noiselessly on tip-toe. It was felt to be a time when people required keeping up, and the butler had opened a bottle of John Calverley's particular Madeira, and the cook had announced her intention of adding something special to the ordinary supper fare. Mrs. Calverley had retired to her bed-room, and announced that she would see no one save Madame Du Tertre, who was to be shown up directly she returned. And about seven o'clock in the murky autumnal evening, there was a noise of wheels and a low knock, and It arrived, and was borne in its shell on men's shoulders up the creaking stairs to an unused room on the second-floor, where It was left alone. There It lay deserted by all; It that had been young John Calverley the worshipped treasure of the old mother long since passed away; It that had been the revered head of the great City house of Calverley and Company of world-wide fame and never-tarnished renown; It that had been 'dear old John,' so passionately loved by Alice Claxton, who was even now looking out into the dark night from her cottage-porch, and wondering whether her husband had gone off on business or whether he would return.