t standin' there, obstructin' of
the traffic."

"I wanted to ask you, Mr. Creed, is there anything to be done for Mrs.
Hughs?"

The frail old body quivered with the vindictive force of his answer.

"Accordin' to what she says, if I'm a-to believe 'er, I'd have him up
before the magistrate, sure as my name's Creed, an' get a separation, an'
I wouldn't never live with 'im again: that's what she ought to do. An'
if he come to go for her after that, I'd have 'im in prison, if 'e killed
me first! I've no patience with a low class o' man like that! He
insulted of me this morning."

"Prison's a dreadful remedy," murmured Hilary.

The old butler answered stoutly: "There ain't but one way o' treatin'
them low fellers--ketch hold o' them until they holler!"

Hilary was about to reply when he found himself alone. At the edge of
the pavement some yards away, Creed, his face upraised to heaven, was
embracing with all his force the second edition of the Westminster
Gazette, which had been thrown him from a cart.

'Well,' thought Hilary, walking on, 'you know your own mind, anyway!'

And trotting by his side, with her jaw set very firm, his little bulldog
looked up above her eyes, and seemed to say: 'It was time we left that
man of action!'

CHAPTER VII

CECILIA'S SCATTERED THOUGHTS

In her morning room Mrs. Stephen Dallison sat at an old oak bureau
collecting her scattered thoughts. They lay about on pieces of stamped
notepaper, beginning "Dear Cecilia," or "Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace
requests," or on bits of pasteboard headed by the names of theatres,
galleries, or concert-halls; or, again, on paper of not quite so good a
quality, commencing, "Dear Friend," and ending with a single well-known
name like "Wessex," so that no suspicion should attach to the appeal
contained between the two. She had before her also sheets of her own
writing-paper, headed "76, The Old Square, Kensington," and two little
books. One of these was bound in marbleised paper, and on it written:
"Please keep this book in safety"; across the other, cased in the skin of
some small animal deceased, was inscribed the solitary word
"Engagements."

Cecilia had on a Persian-green silk blouse with sleeves that would have
hidden her slim hands, but for silver buttons made in the likeness of
little roses at her wrists; on her brow was a faint frown, as though she
were wondering what her thoughts were all about. She sat there every
morning catchi