y." Then, after a mumbling interval,
"and, if anybody calls, I won't see 'em--except Notley, who comes at
eleven. And, when he comes, send him up at once--no kitchen gossip! I
don't pay lawyers to come here and amuse kitchen wenches. Why don't you
speak, eh? W-what?"

"Because I've nothing to say, sir."

"That's right, that's right. Now that you've left off 'speaking your
mind,' as you used to call it, you're becoming quite docile and useful.
Perhaps, I'll give Ripon another fifty dollars a year. I'm not a hard
man, you know, when people understand that I stand no nonsense. But I
always have my own way. No one can get over me. You and I understand each
other, Mrs. Ripon, eh? Yet, I doubt if you'd have remained so long, if
Ripon hadn't married you. He's made a sensible woman of you. Tell him I'm
going to give him an extra fifty dollars a year, but--but he must do with
a hand less in the gardens."

"What, another?"

"Yes. It'll pay, won't it, to get fifty dollars a year more, and save me
two hundred on the outdoor staff, eh?"

The woman made no answer, but crossed the room softly, and closed the
door. When she was on the other side of it, she shook her fist at him.

"You old wretch! If I had my way, I'd smother you. You spoil your own
life, and you're spoiling my man. He won't be fit to live with soon."

The sunlight streamed into the bedroom, and Herresford, drawing the
curtains of his ebony bedstead, lay blinking in their shadow, looking out
over his garden, and noting every beauty with the keen pleasure of an
ardent lover of horticulture--his only hobby. As advancing age laid its
finger more heavily upon him, he had become increasingly irritable and
impossible. Every human instinct seemed to have shriveled up and
died--all save the love of money and his passion for flowers. His
withered old lips almost smiled as he moved the field-glasses slowly,
bringing into range the magnificent stretch of soft turf, with its
patchwork of vivid color.

The face of the old man on the bed changed as he clutched the
field-glasses and brought them in nervous haste to his eyes, and a
muttered oath escaped him. A woman had come through one of the archways
in the hedge that surrounded the herb garden. She walked slowly, every
now and then breaking off a flower. As she tugged at a trail of late
roses, sending their petals in a crimson stream upon the turf, Herresford
dragged himself higher upon the pillows, his lips working in ange