Next day Mr. Benning reappeared, accompanied by a Commissioner, to take Mr. Mortomley's affidavit that to the best of his belief the accounts furnished were accurate.
This ceremony occupied about half a minute, but under the circumstances it did prove an exhilarating performance, and to any one superstitious about such matters, the steady downfall of rain which had commenced on the previous Saturday, and never really left off since it began, was suggestive of a considerable amount of bad weather in the business journey Mortomley had been compelled to undertake.
Late in the afternoon Miss Halling and her brother took their departure. The young lady's luggage had all been despatched earlier in the day, and Rupert's seemed to consist merely of a black leather bag. Nevertheless, when Dolly went into his room she found it stripped of every article belonging to him, even to the sketch of Lenore at five years of age which always hung over the mantel-piece.
The young man had made sure of the safety of his own possessions, and Mrs. Mortomley had sense enough to commend his wisdom.
Nevertheless there is a wisdom which hurts, and Rupert's hurt her.
"I was right," she thought, "they are rats and the ship is sinking." And from that hour she braced up her courage to meet whatever fate might be coming, bravely—as she certainly would have done had she in fact stood on the deck of a vessel foundering in the midst of a wild and cruel sea.
Towards evening there arrived at Homewood a respectable looking sort of individual, who announcing that he was the bearer of a note from Mr. Swanland to Mrs. Mortomley, was asked without delay into the library.
Mrs. Mortomley looked at him and felt relieved. Here was a middle-aged confidential clerk, not at all like a man in possession, and she greeted him with civility, not to say cordiality.
"Pray sit down," she said, and Mr. Meadows seated himself with an apparent show of deference, all the time he understood quite as well as Mr. Bailey, there was not a chair in Homewood which did not already belong of right, not exactly perhaps to him, but his employer.
Then Mrs. Mortomley opened the note and read—