If you
don’t clear out this very minute, I’ll lay my stick across your back! You’ll make me destroy my dog, will you, and just because your trumpery
mother don’t like ’is barking! Go ’ome and tell ’er to ’old ’er own
row! And you accuse my servants of not giving ’im enough to eat. You’d
be glad enough to see ’is dinner on your own table once or twice a
week. Out with you, I say--out with you at once, and don’t let me see
your ugly mug and your carroty ’ead in ’ere again, or I’ll set the dog
you don’t like upon you.”

Captain Hill had turned white as a sheet with anger. “You’ll hear more of this, Madam, and from my solicitor next time,” he
said. “Heartless, unfeeling woman! How can you call yourself a mother,
when you have no pity for a son’s grief at his mother’s illness? Pray
God you may not have occasion to remember this morning, when you have
to part from your own son!”

He rushed from the room as he spoke, and they heard the hall door slam
after him. For a minute after he left, there was a dead pause between
the three women. His last words seemed to have struck the Baroness as
with a two-edged sword. She stood silent, staring into vacancy, and
breathing hard, whilst Harriet Brandt and Miss Wynward regarded each
other with furtive dismay. The silence was broken by Madame Gobelli
bursting into a harsh laugh. “I don’t fancy ’e will show ’is face in my ’ouse again, in an ’urry,”
she exclaimed. “It was as good as a play to watch ’im, trying to brave
it out! Confound ’is old mother! Why don’t she die and ’ave done
with it! I’ve no patience with old people ’anging on in that way,
and worrying the ’ole world with their fads! Well! what is it?” she
continued to a maid who brought her a letter. “By the post, my lady!”

The Baroness broke the seal. There was such a look of scare upon her
features, that some people might have thought she was glad to have
anything to do that should hide it from her companions. The letter was
from Anthony Pennell, whose name was familiar to her, as to all the
world. As she finished its perusal, her manner entirely altered. The broad
smile broke out on her countenance--her eyes sparkled--one would have
thought she could never be in anything but a beaming good temper. “’Olloa! ’Arriet!” she exclaimed, “’ere’s news for you! ’Oo do you
think this letter’s from?”

“How can I guess?” replied the girl, though her thoughts had flown at
once to Ralph Pullen. “From Mr. Anthony Pennell, the great author, you know, and own cousin
to that rapscallion, Captain Pullen! Now we shall ’ear all about the
’andsome Captain! Mr. Pennell says ’e wants to come ’ere and see my
china, but I know better! ’E’s bringing you a message from ’is cousin,
mark my words! I can see it written up be’ind you!”

Harriet’s delicate face flushed with pleasure at the news. “But why shouldn’t Captain Pullen have come himself?” she asked,
anxiously. “I can’t tell you that! Perhaps ’e is coming, be’ind the other, and
this is only a feeler! There’s wheels within wheels in these big
families, sometimes, you know, and the Pullens are connected with a
lot of big-wigs! But we’ll ’ave some news, anyway! You just sit down,
my dear, and write Mr. Pennell a pretty note in my name--you write a
prettier ’and than I do--and say we shall be very pleased to see ’im
to-morrow afternoon, if convenient, and I ’ope ’e will stay to dinner
afterwards and be introduced to the Baron--will you?”

“O! yes, of course, Madame, if you wish it!” replied the girl, smiles
dimpling her face at the thought of her triumph over Elinor Leyton. “Now, Miss Wynward, we must ’ave a first-rate dinner to-morrow for Mr.
Pennell, and you and Bobby ’ad better dine at one o’clock, or you’ll
spoil the table. Let me see! We’ll ’ave----”

But turning to enforce her orders, the Baroness discovered that Miss
Wynward had quitted the room. “Why! where ’as the woman gone? Did you see ’er leave the room,
’Arriet?”

“I did not! I was too much occupied listening to you,” replied the girl
from the table, where she was inditing the answer to Anthony Pennell’s
note. “’Ere, Miss Wynward! Miss Wynward!” screamed the Baroness from the open
door, but no reply came to her call. “I must go and see after ’er!” she said, as she stumped from the room,
as intent upon procuring a good dinner for one young man, as she had
been in insulting the other, and turning him from her doors. Meanwhile Captain Hill, hot and angry, was striding away in the
direction of his own home, when he heard a soft voice calling his name
in the rear. He turned to encounter the spare, humiliated form of Miss
Wynward. “Captain Hill,” she ejaculated, “I beg your pardon, but may I speak to
you for a moment?”

Recognising her as having been in the room, when the Baroness had so
grossly insulted him, he waited rather coldly for her to come up with
him. “Don’t think me impertinent or interfering,” faltered Miss Wynward,
“but I was so shocked--so distressed--I could not let you go without
saying how grieved and sorry I am!”

“I do not quite understand you,” replied Captain Hill. “O! yes, surely, did you not see me in the room just now! I felt as if
I should die of shame! But if you knew what it is to be dependent--to
be unable to speak or to expostulate--you would guess perhaps----”

“Yes! Yes! I think I can understand. But pray don’t distress yourself
about it! It was my own fault! I should have addressed her first
through my solicitor. But I thought she was a gentlewoman!”

“It is her temper that gets the better of her,” said Miss Wynward in an
apologetic tone, “she is not always so bad as she was this morning!”

“That is fortunate for the world at large,” replied Captain
Hill, gravely. “I could have forgiven her vulgarity, but not her
heartlessness. I can only think that she is a most terrible woman.”

“That is what everybody says,” answered his companion, “but she will
admit of no remonstrance. She _will_ have her own way, and the Baron
is as powerless to refrain her, as you, or I. But that she should
so insult a gentleman like yourself, even descending to oaths and
personalities--O! I cannot tell you how much I felt it--how ashamed I
was, and how anxious that you should not confound me with anything the
Baroness said, or did!”

“Indeed,” said Captain Hill, holding out his hand, “you need have no
fear on that score. I hope I know a gentlewoman when I see her! But
tell me, since your eyes are open to all this, how is it that a lady
like yourself can stay under the roof of so terrible a person? There
are plenty of other situations to be had! Why do you not leave her, and
go elsewhere?”

He was struck by the look of mingled anxiety and fear with which she
regarded him. “O! Captain Hill, there are reasons that are difficult to explain--that
I could not tell to anyone on so short an acquaintance. But the
Baroness possesses great power--she could ruin me, I believe she could
_kill_ if she chose!”

“She threatens you then!”

“Yes!” came from Miss Wynward’s lips, but in almost a whisper. “Well!