hrilled her. It was a fact that for some weeks past Louis had been
carrying a revolver. At intervals the craze for firearms seizes the
fashionable youth of a provincial town, like the craze for marbles
at school, and then dies away. In the present instance it had been
originated by the misadventure of a dandy with an out-of-work artisan
on the fringe of Hanbridge. Nothing could be more correct than for
a man of spirit and fashion thus to arm himself in order to cow the
lower orders and so cope with the threatened social revolution.

"You _don't_, Louis!" Mrs. Maldon deprecated.

"I'll show you," said Louis, feeling in his hip pocket.

"_Please_!" protested Mrs. Maldon, and Rachel covered her face
with her hands and drew back from Louis' sinister gesture. "Please
don't _show_ it to us!" Mrs. Maiden's tone was one of imploring
entreaty. For an instant she was just like a sentimentalist who
resents and is afraid of hearing the truth. She obscurely thought that
if she resolutely refused to see the revolver it would somehow cease
to exist. With a loaded revolver in the house the situation seemed
more dangerous and more complicated than ever. There was something
absolutely terrifying in the conjuncture of a loaded revolver and a
secret hoard of bank-notes.

"All right! All right!" Louis relented.

Julian cut across the scene with a gruff and final--

"I must clear out of this!"

He rose.

"Must you?" said his aunt.

She did not unduly urge him to delay, for the strain of family life
was exhausting her.

"I must catch the 9.48," said Julian, looking at the clock and at his
watch.

Herein was yet another example of the morbid reticence which so pained
Mrs. Maldon. He must have long before determined to catch the 9.48;
yet he had said nothing about it till the last moment! He had said
nothing even about South Africa until the news was forced from him. It
had been arranged that he should come direct to Bursley station from
his commercial journey in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, pass the night at
his aunt's house, which was conveniently near the station, and proceed
refreshed to business on the morrow. A neat arrangement, well suiting
the fact of his birthday! And now he had broken it in silence, without
a warning, with the baldest possible explanation! His aunt, despite
her real interest in him, could never extract from him a clear account
of his doings and his movements. And this South African excursion was
the last a