e was known to have speculated heavily for a rise
in the shares of a great brewery which had falsified the prophecies of
its founders when they benevolently sold it to the investing public.
Some people wondered how long John could hold those shares in a falling
market. Leonora had no definite knowledge of her husband's affairs,
since neither John nor any other person breathed a word to her about
them. And yet she knew, by certain vibrations in the social atmosphere
as mysterious and disconcerting as those discovered by Roentgen in the
physical, that disaster, after having been repelled, was returning from
afar. Money flowed through the house as usual; nevertheless often, as
she drove about Bursley, consciously exciting the envy and admiration
which a handsome woman behind a fast cob is bound to excite, her shamed
fancy pictured the day when Prince should belong to another and she
should walk perforce on the pavement in attire genteelly preserved from
past affluence. Only women know the keenest pang of these secret
misgivings, at once desperate and helpless.

Nor did she find solace in her girls. One Saturday afternoon Ethel came
back from the duty-visit to Aunt Hannah and said as it were
confidentially to Leonora: 'Fred called in while I was there, mother,
and stayed for tea.' What could Leonora answer? Who could deny Fred the
right to visit his great-aunt and his great-uncle, both rapidly ageing?
And of what use to tell John? She desired Ethel's happiness, but from
that moment she felt like an accomplice in the furtive wooing, and it
seemed to her that she had forfeited both the confidence of her husband
and the respect of her daughter. Months ago she had meant by force of
some initiative to regularise this idyll which by its stealthiness
wounded the self-respect of all concerned. Vain aspiration! And now the
fact that Fred Ryley had begun to call at Church Street appeared to
indicate between him and Uncle Meshach a closer understanding which
could only be detrimental to the interests of John.

As for Rose, that child of misfortune did well during the first four
days of the examination, but on the fifth day one of her chronic
sick-headaches had in two hours nullified all the intense and ceaseless
effort of two years. It was precisely in chemistry that she had failed.
She arrived from London in tears, and the tears were renewed when the
formal announcement of defeat came three weeks later by telegraph and
John added ga