stage effect did
the business."

"Thank you," he said, taking the paper, and, after glancing at the
signature, putting it in his pocket-book. "Allow me to give you
this"--handing her the check. "And now I will ring for the house-keeper,
for you will barely have time to make the arrangements for your journey.
I can allow you only twenty minutes." He rang the bell as he spoke.

She started up as if unaware how far she had yielded. A rush of angry
color flooded her face.

"I won't have that impertinent woman touching my things."

"That is as you like," said Charles, shrugging his shoulders; "but she
will be in the room when you pack. It is my wish that she should be
present." Then turning to the butler, who had already answered the bell,
"Desire the house-keeper to go to Mrs. Carroll's rooms at once, and to
give Mrs. Carroll any help she may require."

Mrs. Carroll looked from the butler to Charles with baffled hatred in
her eyes. But she knew the game was lost, and she walked out of the room
and up-stairs without another word, but with a bitter consciousness in
her heart that she had not played her cards well, that, though her
downfall was unavoidable, she might have stood out for better terms for
her departure. She hated Dare, as she threw her clothes together into
her trunks, and she hated Mrs. Smith, who watched her do so with folded
hands and with a lofty smile; but most of all she hated Charles, whose
voice came up to the open window as he talked to Dare's coachman,
already at the door, about splints and sore backs.

Charles felt a momentary pity for the little woman when she came down at
last with compressed lips, casting lightning glances at the grinning
servants in the background, whom she had bullied and hectored over in
the manner of people unaccustomed to servants, and who were rejoicing in
the ignominy of her downfall.

Her boxes were put in--not carefully.

Charles came forward and lifted his cap, but she would not look at him.
Grasping a little hand-bag convulsively, she went down the steps, and
got up, unassisted, into the dog-cart.

"You have left nothing behind, I hope?" said Charles, civilly, for the
sake of saying something.

"She have left nothing," said Mrs. Smith, swimming forward with dignity,
"and she have also took nothing. I have seen to that, Sir Charles."

"Good-bye, then," said Charles. "Right, coachman."

Mrs. Carroll's eyes had been wandering upward to the old house rising
abo