They grumbled pretty freely concerning this irregularity; so freely, indeed, that Mr. Bailey told them if they did not like Mr. Swanland's management they had better leave. Whereupon they said they did not like Mr. Swanland's management if it kept them kicking their heels for five hours when they might have been at home, and that they would leave.
On hearing this, Mr. Bailey drew in his horns, and said they had better not be hasty, and that he would speak to Mr. Swanland. To both of which suggestions they agreed somewhat sullenly, and so ended that week.
The next opened with the valuation of the Homewood furniture and other effects—as a "mere matter of form," so Mr. Swanland declared—but, like the trustee's, the auctioneer's men took possession of the place as if it belonged to them, and without either with your leave or by your leave, walked from room to room making their inventory.
Up to the time of their arrival Dolly had entertained hopes of inducing her husband to make an effort to get downstairs. For days previously she had been artfully striving to make him believe his presence in the works was earnestly needed. She had suggested his spending an evening in the drawing-room. She had on Sunday drawn a picture of the conservatory sufficient to have tempted any ordinary invalid to hazard the undertaking, but Mortomley's malady was as much mental as physical, and not any medicine she could administer was able to cure that mind diseased, which, no less than bodily illness, had stricken him with a blow so sudden and so sharp.
"We will see to-morrow, dear," was all the answer she could ever elicit.
All in vain she guaranteed him immunity from indignant creditors, who would persist in visiting Homewood in order to recite their wrongs, and to hope Mr. Mortomley would see them safe at all events; in vain she promised that not a man in possession should cross his sight; in vain she spoke of the brighter days dawning before them; in vain she employed eloquence, and it may be a little deceit.
It was always, "We will see to-morrow;" but once the morrow came, the evil hour was again deferred when Mortomley should look on the face of his fair house dishonoured, when he should nerve himself up to pass where sacrilegious feet had trodden down the beauty and the grace, destroyed all the sweet memories which once clustered round and about the place where his father had lived, where he himself was born.
And sometimes Dolly felt angry and sometimes sad, but she never felt hopeless until those men intruding into the very room where Mortomley sat listlessly looking out at the gloomy sky, taught him the precise position he occupied.
With a white face Dolly watched their movements, and when in a short time they shut the door behind them, she went up to her husband and kissed his forehead.
"Should you not like to be away from all this?" she asked.