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