o keep what doesn't
belong to them.'

'It isn't my doing, Dick,' she said more seriously.

'I don't suppose it is.'

'Then you oughtn't to be angry with me.'

'I'm not angry. What do you want?'

'I went to see mother yesterday. I think she wants you to go; it looked
like it.'

'I'll go some day.'

'It's too bad that she should have to keep 'Arry in idleness.'

'She hasn't to keep him. I send her money.'

'But how are you to afford that?'

'That's not your business.'

Alice looked indignant.

'I think you might speak more politely to me in my own house.'

'It isn't your own house.'

'It is as long as I live in it. I suppose you'd like to see me go back
to a workroom. It's all very well for you; if you live in lodgings,
that doesn't say you've got no money. We have to do the best we can for
ourselves; we haven't got your chances of making a good bargain.'

It was said with much intention; Alice hall closed her eyes and curled
her lips in a disdainful smile.

'What chances? What do you mean?'

'Perhaps if _I_'d been a particular friend of Mr. Eldon's--never mind.'

He flashed a look at her.

'What are you talking about? Just speak plainly, will you? What do you
mean by "particular friend"? I'm no more a friend of Eldon's than you
are, and I've made no bargain with him.'

'I didn't say _you_.'

'Who then?' he exclaimed sternly.

'Don't you know? Some one is so very proper, and such a fine lady, I
shouldn't have thought she'd have done things without your knowing.'

He turned pale, and seemed to crush the floor with his foot, that he
might stand firm.

'You're talking of Adela?'

Alice nodded.

'What about her? Say at once what you've got to say.'

Inwardly she was a little frightened, perhaps half wished that she had
not begun. Yet it was sweet to foresee the thunderbolt that would fall
on her enemy's head. That her brother would suffer torments did not
affect her imagination; she had never credited him with strong feeling
for his wife; and it was too late to draw back.

'You know that she met Mr. Eldon in the wood at Wanley on the day after
she found the will?'

Mutimer knitted his brows to regard her. But in speaking he was more
self-governed than before.

'Who told you that?'

'My husband. He saw them together.'

'And heard them talking?'

'Yes.'

Rodman had only implied this. Alice's subsequent interrogation had
failed to elicit more from him than dark hints.

Mutimer dr