aucepan; it was already several seconds
overdone.

"It isn't as if I could keep you on as a charwoman," said Rachel. "I
must have some one all the time, and I couldn't do with a charwoman as
well."

"No, ma'am! It's like as if what must be."

"Well, I hope you'll think it over. I must say I didn't expect this
from you, Mrs. Tams."

Mrs. Tams put her lips together and bent obstinately over a tray.

Rachel said to herself: "Oh, she really means to leave! I can see
that. She's made up her mind.... I shall never trust any servant
again--never!"

She was perhaps a little hurt (for she considered that she had much
benefited Mrs. Tams), and a little perturbed for the future. But in
her heart she did not care. She would not have cared if the house had
fallen in, or if her native land had been invaded and enslaved by a
foreign army. She was at peace with Louis. He was hers. She felt that
her lien on him was strengthened.

II

The breakfast steaming and odorous on the table, and Rachel all
tingling in front of her tray, awaited the descent of the master of
the house. The Sunday morning post, placed in its proper position by
Mrs. Tams, consisted of a letter and a post-card. Rachel stretched her
arm across the table to examine them. The former had a legal aspect.
It was a foolscap envelope addressed to Mrs. Maldon. Rachel opened it.
A typewritten circular within respectfully pointed out to Mrs. Maldon
that if she had only followed the writers' advice, given gratis a few
weeks earlier, she would have made one hundred and twenty-five pounds
net profit by spending thirty-five pounds in the purchase of an option
on Canadian Pacific Railway shares. The statement was supported by
the official figures of the Stock Exchange, which none could question.
"Can you afford to neglect such advice in future?" the writers
asked Mrs. Maldon, and went on to suggest that she should send them
forty-five pounds to buy an option on "Shells," which were guaranteed
to rise nine points in less than a month.

Mystified, half sceptical, and half credulous, Rachel reflected
casually that the world was full of strange phenomena. She wondered
what "Shells" were, and why the writers should keep on writing to
a woman who had been dead for ages. She carefully burnt both the
circular and the envelope.

And then she looked at the post-card, which was addressed to "Louis
Fores, Esq." As it was a post-card, she was entitled to read it.
She read: "Sha