a hundred," said he. "A hundred and twenty."

"So that, first and last, you have to handle about sixty pounds each
week, and all in silver and copper. Fancy! What a weight it must be!"

"Ay!" he said, but with less enthusiasm.

"That's three thousand a-year," she continued.

Her tone was still innocuously sympathetic. She seemed to be talking of
money as she might have talked of counters. Nevertheless, he felt that
he had been entrapped.

"I expect you must have saved at the very least thirty thousand pounds
by this time," she reflected, judicially, disinterestedly--speaking as a
lawyer might have spoken.

He offered no remark.

"That means another thirty pounds a week," she resumed. Decidedly she
was marvellous at sums of interest.

He persisted in offering no remark.

"By the way," she said, "I must look into my household accounts. How
much did you tell me you allowed Mrs. Butt a week for expenses?"

"A pound," he replied, shortly.

She made no comment. "You don't own the house, do you?" she inquired.

"No," he said.

"What's the rent?"

"Eighteen pounds," he said. Reluctant is a word that inadequately
describes his attitude.

"The worst of this house is that it has no bathroom," she remarked.
"Still, eighteen pounds a year is eighteen pounds a year."

Her tone was faultless, in its innocent, sympathetic common sense. The
truth was, it was too faultless; it rendered James furious with a fury
that was dangerous, because it had to be suppressed.

Then suddenly she left the table.

"The Kiel butter at a shilling a pound is quite good enough, Georgiana,"
he heard her exhorting the servant in the scullery.

Ten minutes later, she put ten sovereigns in front of him.

"There's that ten-pound note," she said, politely (but not quite
accurately). "I've got enough of my own to get on with."

She fled ere he could reply.

And not a word had he contrived to say to her concerning Emanuel.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WORLD

A few days later James Ollerenshaw was alone in the front room, checking
various accounts for repairs of property in Turnhill, when twin letters
fell into the quietude of the apartment. The postman--the famous old
postman of Bursley, who on fine summer days surmounted the acute
difficulty of tender feet by delivering mails in worsted slippers--had
swiftly pushed the letters, as usual, through the slit in the door; but,
nevertheless, their advent had somehow the air of magic, as, i