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ese matt'rs with you," he said, with an effort at haughtiness. "Purely private 'fairs." "If it wasn't for the business here," she went on, "I think you'd succeed in driving me mad. This just saves me. I'm not going to allow you to interfere with it, and if you dare to come here again, I shall most certainly lock you up. Now be off with you." Mr. Digby Jacks wept, and, at the doorway, threatened to drown himself in the Thames. In the Thames, just to the right of Cleopatra's Needle. "I wish you would." "Shan't, now," he retorted sulkily, "just in order to dis'point you. You're cruel woman, and some day you'll realize it and be sorry. Goo' night, and be hanged to you." Gertie congratulated Madame upon her firmness, and the other admitted the situation was one not easy to handle. For if, she explained, money had been given, then he would have absented himself from Jubilee Place for a week; as it was, he would be absent for a space of two or three days. Gertie expressed surprise at this behaviour, and Madame said it was almost bound to happen where the wife earned an income, and the husband gained none. By rights, it should be the other way about, and then there was a fair prospect of happiness. Madame counselled the girl to be careful not to imitate the example; Gertie replied that she had long since made up her mind on this point. "But why don't you get rid of him?" she inquired. "Because I've left it too long. Besides, I'm too old to get anybody else." "Surely you'd be better off alone?" "No, I shouldn't," answered Madame promptly. "What do you make the proper total, my dear, of that account Miss Rabbit made a muddle of?" Within her experience it had sometimes happened that Gertie, on the way home, found herself spoken to by a stranger; this rarely occurred, because she walked with briskness, and refrained from glancing at other pedestrians. (Generally the intruder was a youth anxious to make or sustain a reputation for gallantry, and he accepted the sharp rebuff with docility.) But news came from Miss Loriner that Lady Douglass, after years of the luxury of imagining herself in delicate health, was now genuinely ill, and Henry went down from town each evening by a late train to make inquiries, returning in the morning. Miss Loriner added that some of Lady Douglass's indisposition might be due to the fact that the executors were hinting at the eventual necessity of taking out probate
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