"I warned you before that I should make you pay for this. I am master here, and I tell you I shall kick you out if you ever show your ugly faces here again," he said, choking with passion.
"Good evening, Mistress Kane," winked Lang, as they passed him. "It was not square of you to skip off from me without paying your board. I'm dead broke, so you or your follower better pay up now; it's only five sovereigns, and save law expenses."
"You are unwise, Mr. Lang, to add insult to injury," she said, quietly, as she went out into a serener night.
"Provide yourselves with plasters, and we shall provide ourselves with copper toes, the next time you trespass," shouted Mrs. Cole, over the banisters.
"We shall only trouble you once more," said Silas Jones, curbing himself, "when Mrs. Jones will give you her signature in exchange for five hundred pounds, with interest on same, left her by the will of the late Mrs. Villiers."
CHAPTER XX.
"YOUR EEN WERE LIKE A SPELL."
The silver chimes of the mantel clock rang four p.m., as Mrs. Gower descended from her sewing-room on the last day of the old year. She looked well in a gown of soft, grey silk, hanging in full, straight folds, unrelieved by ornament, save a few sprays of sweet heliotrope at her collar-fastening.
She stood at the library door, unseen by Miss Crew the only occupant, who made a pretty picture, the last beams of the setting sun coming in through a west window, lighting up her fair hair and pretty brown gown, the firelight lending color to her pale cheeks; a cabinet photo is in her hand, at which she is gazing so earnestly, and with such a troubled expression, that she has not heard Mrs. Gower, though singing softly, as she descended the stairs,