en you and me, Aunt Deb, he took a great deal more than
was good for him latterly, and that told upon him. His blood was bad.
You know he was always a self-indulgent man."

Deb nodded, forgetting that it was a son who spoke. She was saying to
herself, "Bennet Goldsworthy, whom we made sure would live for ever!
Bennet Goldsworthy, of all people! What a relief that will be to
Claud!" And then she thought of her widowed sister, with a rush of pity
and compunction. He was her husband, after all.

Bob's light attention to the subject was already gone. He was staring
at one of the great trunks covered with foreign labels. Rosalie was
telling him how many more Mrs Dalzell had.

"Oh, yes," said Deb, confused and crimson, "I forgot to mention--I
suppose you don't know--that I am married. To an old friend of our
family--your mother will know him well. By the way, Bob, I must go and
see her at once. We'll have some lunch first; I must wash and change my
clothes. Then will you stay at the hotel and settle Rosalie, and see to
things? No, I would rather go alone. Stay in town and dine with me--and
don't look so shocked, my good boy, as if I'd cut you off with a
shilling. My marriage will make no difference to you." "Aunt
Deb!"--with dignified reproach. "As if I thought of that."

But somehow she felt sure he did think of it.

They had luncheon together at the hotel, and sat awhile to digest it
and to talk things over. While they sipped coffee, he told her how he
had furnished his bachelor rooms--the artistic woodwork, the curios,
the colours, how he had hunted for the right shade of red, what he had
given for a particular rug which alone would blend and harmonise. She
was brightly interested in these things, and promised to go and see
them. She was to go to lunch next day--he thought he could safely
undertake not to poison her with bad cooking or unsound wine. He lived
in chambers in Parliament Place. This engagement booked, she asked him
for his mother's address.

Mary lived in a small street in Richmond.

"Such a slum!" said Bob disgustedly. "But she would do it, in spite of
all that I could say. And rushed there, too, when he had hardly been
dead a week. It was not decent, as I told her, to be advertising the
sale two days after the funeral. But she is a peculiar woman."

"She is a Pennycuick," said Mrs Dalzell reprovingly. "She would not
care to go on living in a house that she had ceased to have the right
to live in. I