Along the front and one end of the house at Homewood ran a wide low verandah, over which trailed masses of clematis, clustres of roses, long sprays of honeysuckle, and delicate branches of jasmine. In the summer and autumn so thick was the foliage, hanging in festoons from the tops of the light iron pillars depending from the fretwork which formed the arches, that the verandah was converted into a shaded bower, the sunbeams only reaching it through a tracery of leaves.

Up and down under the shelter of this verandah, Rupert paced impatiently for a few minutes after Mr. Dean's departure, the sound of the rain pouring on the roof making a suitable accompaniment to thoughts that were about the most anxious the young man's mind had ever held.

Now that the step had been taken and the die cast, liquidation assumed a different aspect to that it had worn when viewed from a distance. Something he could not have defined in the manner of the two clerks filled him with a vague uneasiness, whilst Mr. Dean's determination that his fiancÉe should be exposed no longer to the contaminating associations of Homewood annoyed him beyond expression. True, for some time previously he had been drifting away from his uncle. Whilst Dolly thought he was assisting her husband and still devoting himself to the town business, he was really working for many hours a week in his new painting-room, which he reached by taking advantage of that funny little railway between Stratford and Victoria Park, which connects the Great Eastern and the North London lines.

He had never entered the offices of the General Chemical Company since the day when he opened his lips to warn his uncle of the probable consequences of that weakness which induced him to struggle on long after he ought to have stopped. He very rarely honoured the Thames Street Warehouse with his presence, and he never interfered in the business unless Mortomley asked him to arrange a disputed account or call upon the representative of some country house who might chance when in town to take up his quarters at a West-end hotel.

Nevertheless, he did not like the idea of cutting himself utterly adrift from his relatives. Homewood had been home to him, more truly home than his father's house ever proved. Spite of all the anxiety of the later time, his residence under Mortomley's roof had been a happy period. He liked his uncle and his wife, and the little Lenore, and—well there was no use in looking back—the happy days were gone and past, and he must look out for himself. He could not afford to quarrel with Mr. Dean, and Dolly's bitter speech still rankled in his memory, but yet he had not meant to give up Homewood entirely, and Mr. Dean must have blundered in some way to leave such an impression on Mrs. Mortomley's mind.

"I will have it out with her at once," he decided, and he threw away his cigar, girt up his loins for the coming struggle, and re-entered the house.

He found Dolly in the library writing a letter. When he entered, she raised her head to see who it was, but immediately and without remark resumed her occupation.

There was a bright red spot flaming on each cheek, and a dangerous sparkle in her eyes, which assured Rupert the air was not yet clear, and that the storm might come round again at any moment.

But he knew the sooner they commenced their quarrel the more speedily it would be over, and so plunged into the matter at once.

"Dolly, what have you been doing to Mr. Dean? He has gone off looking as black as a thunder-cloud."

"I have been giving him a piece of my mind," she answered without looking up, and her pen flew more rapidly over the paper.

"Your explanation is not lady-like, but it is explicit," remarked Rupert, "I am afraid you will soon not have any mind left if you are so generous in disposing of it."

"If my mind proves of no more use to me in the future than it has in the past, the sooner I dispose of it all the better," was the reply.

"Do you think you are wise in commencing your present campaign by quarrelling with everybody?" he inquired.

"Yes, if every one is like Mr. Dean and—and other people."

"Meaning me?"

"Meaning you, if you choose to take the cap and wear it."

"Do you know Mr. Dean says he would not marry you if you had twenty thousand a year?"

"It is a matter of the utmost indifference to me what Mr. Dean says or thinks either."

"He told me you considered Antonia and myself little, if at all, better than rats."

"Did he happen to tell you what I thought of him?"

There was no shaming or threatening Dolly into a good temper when a mood like this was on her. So Rupert changed his tactics.

"Do put down your pen and let us talk this matter over quietly together."

"You had better go away and not ask me to talk at all," she answered; but she ceased writing nevertheless.

"Do you want that letter posted?" he inquired.

"No, I shall send it by a messenger."

"It is not to Mr. Dean, is it?"

"To Mr. Dean," she repeated. "What should I write to Mr. Dean for? It is to no one connected with Mr. Dean or you."

"Well, lay it aside for a few minutes and tell me in what way we have annoyed you."

"You have annoyed me by want of straightforwardness. Mr. Dean has annoyed me by his insolence, unintentional though I believe it to have been. But that only makes the sting the sharper. Who is he that his future wife should be taken away from Homewood the moment misfortune threatens it? What is Antonia that she should be treated as though she were one of the blood royal?"

"Mr. Dean is one of the most intolerable bores I ever met," replied Rupert calmly. "And Antonia is, in my opinion, an extremely calculating and commonplace young person. But Mr. Dean has money and his prejudices, and I am sure you do not wish to prevent Antonia marrying the only rich man who is ever likely to make her an offer.

"Now Mr. Dean regards a man who fails to meet his engagements as a little lower than a felon. I believe he would quite as soon ask a ticket-of-leave fellow to Elm Park as a merchant whose affairs are embarrassed, and there is no use in trying to argue him out of his notions. We must take people as they are, Dolly."

"Yes, if it is necessary to take them at all," she agreed.

"It is very necessary for me," he said. "I cannot afford to quarrel with Mr. Dean, or to have Antonia thrown on my hands, as she would be if he refused to marry her."

"He will not refuse," observed Dolly. "He has thought that subject over, and decided it is too late to draw back now."

"How do you know?" asked Rupert in amazement.

"Because I taxed him with having done so, and he could not deny it. Pray assure him next time you meet he need not fear Archie or myself presuming on the relationship and asking him for help, and scheming for invitations to Elm Park. So far as I am concerned I should be glad never to see him or his wife (that is to be) again."

"Good heavens!" ejaculated Rupert. Over what awful perils he had been gliding all unconsciously. If her conversation were as she reported it, might not Mr. Dean well call little Mrs. Mortomley a dreadful woman. Certainly the sooner Antonia was away from Homewood, the better for all parties concerned.

He had been imprudent himself, but how could he imagine the nature of the interview which preceded his own; he must see Mr. Dean again immediately. He must carry a fictitious apology from Dolly to that gentleman, and then arrange for their eternal separation. All these things raced through his mind, and then he said,

"You are a perfect Ishmael, Dolly."

"Am I?" she retorted. "Well I am content. The idea pleases me, for I always considered Ishmael's mother a much more attractive sort of woman than Sarah, and I have no doubt Abraham thought so too."

She was recovering her good temper by slow degrees, it is true; but still Rupert understood that the wind was shifting round to a more genial quarter.

"Why should we—you and I—quarrel?" he suddenly asked, stretching out his hand across the table towards her.

She did not give him hers as he evidently expected she would, but answered,

"Because I do hate people who are secret and deceitful and not straightforward."

"You mean about that picture?" he said.

"Yes," she agreed; "the picture was the first thing which shocked me, and since that you leave a stranger to say you intend that I shall be all alone through this trouble—all alone!"

There was an unconscious pathos in the way she repeated those two last words which wrung Rupert's heart.

"I never intended to leave you alone," he replied. "I do not intend to do so now. I must go to these confounded lodgings with Antonia, because the powers that be insist on my going, but neither she nor Mr. Dean can expect me to stay with her the whole day. She must get some one of her innumerable female friends to bear her company; and I shall be here almost continually. Upon my soul, Dolly, if I dare offend Mr. Dean, nothing should induce me to leave Homewood at this juncture; indeed, I told him in so many words, that if you wished me to stay I would remain."

She did not answer for a few moments, then she said,

"You were quite safe in telling him that, Rupert. You knew I would never ask anyone to sacrifice his own interests to my fancies."

"You are angry with me still!" he remarked, then finding she remained silent, he went on,

"I confess I did wrong about that picture, but I did not sin intentionally, with any idea of concealment, or separating my interests from yours. I only held my peace, because I did not want Forde to know; and no harm would have been done had that pompous old idiot held his tongue, and not considered it necessary to explain that the brother of his future wife was able to earn money for his own wants.

"The moment this liquidation business was settled, I meant to tell you concerning that and the studio, but I was so vexed about Dean's wish for Antonia to leave here, that I felt I could not talk to you freely. Do you believe me? Indeed what I have said is the literal truth."

"It may be," she answered, "but it is not quite the whole truth. However that does not signify very much. No doubt you are wise in making provision for yourself,—but oh!"

And covering her face with her hands, she ended her sentence with a paroxysm of tearless grief.

In a moment Rupert was beside her, "What is it, what is the matter, Dolly? Dolly, speak to me; there is nothing on earth I will not do for you if you only tell me what you want."

She lifted her head and looked at him as a person might who had just returned from a journey through some strange and troubled land.

For many a day that look haunted Rupert Halling; it will haunt him at intervals through the remainder of his life. She put back her hair which had fallen over her face, with a painful slowness of movement foreign to her temperament. She opened her lips to speak, but her tongue refused its office.

Then Rupert frightened ran into the dining-room, and brought her wine, but she put it aside, and he fetched her water, and held the tumbler for her to drink.

As if there had been some virtue in the draught, her eyes filled with tears—heavy tears that gathered on her lashes and then fell lingeringly drop by drop; but soon the trouble found quicker vent, and she broke into an almost hysterical fit of weeping.

"Cry, dear, cry, it will do you good," he said as she strove vainly to check her sobs. "Do not try to speak at present, you will only make yourself worse."

But Dolly would speak.

"I am so sorry you should have seen me like this" she panted. "I did not mean to be so stupid."

He was standing beside her bathing her hair and forehead with eau de cologne, but his hand shook as he poured out the scent, and he felt altogether, as he defined the sensation to himself, "nervous as a woman."

"Dolly," he began when she grew calm again, "what was the trouble—the special trouble I mean—which caused all this. Do try to tell me. If it was anything I said or did, forgive me; for I never meant to say or do anything to hurt you."

"It was not that," she replied; then after a moment's hesitation she went on. "A dreadful feeling came over me, Rupert, that this liquidation will turn out badly. I have had the feeling at intervals ever since Friday evening, and it seemed just then to overwhelm me. It may be folly, but I cannot shake off the notion that my poor husband will be ruined. If liquidation is what we thought, why should Mr. Dean want Antonia to leave here? Why, if we are only asking for time in which to pay our debts, should such disgrace attach itself to us?"

Now this was just the question Rupert had been vainly asking himself, and he stood silent, unable to answer.

"Think it over until to-morrow," she added, noticing his hesitation. "I am afraid you are worldly and selfish, Rupert, but I do not think you are unfeeling, or quite ungrateful. Think it over for the sake of poor Archie and me and little Lenore, and—I won't insult you by saying for your own sake too. Put yourself quite out of the question, and consider us alone. There was a time when we considered you, and though that time is past, still I hope you can never quite forget."

She rose and stretched out both hands to him, in token of reconciliation and her own woman's weakness which dreaded facing the dark future all alone.

"Dolly dear," he answered, holding her hands tight, "you are so true, a man must be a wretch to cheat you."

For evermore till Eternity Rupert Halling can never quite forget uttering those words, nor the way in which he failed to keep the promise they contained.