‘I wonder if Aunt Celia is up to anything,’ she mused. ‘She generally is when she smiles and says “my dear,” and puts on her gracious air. How I do loathe Aunt Celia! I do believe she is worse than Uncle Belassis. I am afraid she is Phil’s enemy—not that that matters much, for she couldn’t do him any harm. Sometimes I fancy Phil has something on his mind; but I don’t see that he need. I wonder why he said yesterday that he was sure Aunt Olive and I would always stand his friends, through thick and thin. I should think I just would!’ and Maud’s eyes flashed. ‘I’d stand by him whatever happened—whatever he’d said or done, or whatever people said of him. There’s nobody like my Phil. I love his little finger better than all the rest of the world put together. If ever he is in any danger, won’t I show him how I love him!’ Maud’s whole face glowed, and she urged her horse to a gallop in her generous enthusiasm, and rode far and fast that day. Mrs. Belassis walked boldly up to the house. She did not ring the bell, although she was on anything but intimate terms with the household at Ladywell; she preferred to walk straight into the great hall, where she paused and looked about her. Nobody was in sight. Neither manservant nor maidservant, bond nor free, had observed her entrance, and with a certain snake-like look of satisfaction, she quietly crossed the hall, and entered a small room which looked over the garden, and which generally went by the name of ‘Phil’s den.’ Once inside this room, she closed the door softly and stealthily, and looked for a moment as though she would have locked it too; but on second thoughts she seemed to decide against doing so, and muttering, ‘It might look suspicious if anyone should come,’ turned away. The room was not large, and was furnished quite in bachelor fashion, with a shabby but luxuriously easy leather chair, a multitude of pipes and cigar-boxes; one small table beside the easy-chair, which was strewn with newspapers and smoking apparatus, and a large writing-table full of drawers which stood in the window. The walls were adorned by guns and fishing-tackle, and by some engravings which showed greater taste for art, and less for sport, than do most bachelors’ pictures. It was a snug, cosy room; and the presence of a second and much daintier armchair, in the opposite corner, seemed to indicate that Maud liked at times to be her brother’s ‘den companion.’ Mrs. Belassis’ keen eye took all this in at a glance. She saw in a moment where lay her work, and she seated herself in a quiet business-like way at the writing-table. ‘It will be rather odd,’ she muttered to herself, ‘if amongst all his papers I do not find something to give me a clue, if there is anything wrong, and I’m not generally deceived when I take an idea into my head.’