Chapter 10 THE NEW YELLOW.

All that night, after saying her prayers-in which she remembered Mr. Werner and his wife, and all other people who were in sore distress-Mrs. Mortomley lay awake, a strange sense of trouble oppressing her.

It was like the old bad times come back again; it was a return of the later evil days at Homewood, to lie in the semi-darkness of the summer night and think of Mr. Werner ruined, Mr. Werner beggared.

How would his wife bear it? Dolly knew her friend pretty well, yet she could not answer this question to her own satisfaction. Mrs. Werner was a noble, generous-hearted, unselfish woman, and yet Dolly comprehended in some vague, instinctive sort of way that wealth and position and social consideration were very dear to this fresh bankrupt's wife.

There are some people who do not much care whether they walk or drive through the world's thoroughfares; indeed, there are those who, given the choice, would prefer to walk. Now Mrs. Werner's mind was not so ill-regulated an one as all this comes to. Most emphatically she liked her carriages and horses and servants, and all the luxuries money can purchase. She had married for these things, as Mrs. Mortomley understood perfectly, and Dolly did not think-no, she did not, that Leonora would be satisfied to relinquish them.

Further, Mr. Werner had always set himself up as such a model of business capacity and business prudence, that he really had no right to fall into difficulties; certainly not to continue to flounder through difficulties as, according to his own confession, had been the case for years.

He had been living a lie, just one of the things Dolly knew his wife would find it most difficult to forgive. Had he told her duty demanded the sacrifice, she might-Mrs. Mortomley understood-have agreed to live in a house at twenty pounds a year, and wear print dresses, and be extremely strict about the tea and sugar, but she could not have done this with a good grace.

Nevertheless, Dolly believed she could have borne that better than the consciousness that the rich raiment she purchased, the luxurious dinner she provided, the rare wines they drank, had been paid for by a man all the time virtually bankrupt-a man keeping up an appearance so as to obtain fresh credit, and defer the striking of that hour of reckoning which could now be deferred no longer.

Mrs. Mortomley loved Mrs. Werner, and she did not love Mr. Werner, yet certainly her sympathies were that night with the man rather than with the woman.

One's affections are not perhaps strong for the naughty boy who is always persecuting one's cat, and stoning one's dog, and slaying one's chickens, or stealing one's fruit, and yet, when the wicked little wretch comes to grief and goes home with a battered face and cut shins, one's heart is more one with him than with the strong-minded mother, a strict disciplinarian, who we know will lecture or beat him for his sins, as the case may be.

I do not say it is right, for I cannot think it is, that our sympathies should generally be with the evil-doer, but it is very difficult not to feel sorry for the man who, being down, is struck his bitterest blow by those of his own household; and Dolly-well, Dolly did not think if she were in Mr. Werner's shoes she would like to tell the unvarnished truth to Leonora.

Upon the whole Dolly decided he was wise to go abroad, instead of remaining to face the domestic difficulty. "He will write to her," she thought, "tell her all, and she will be very indignant, and think about honour and honesty, and all the rest of it; but she will not, if he is wise, know where to address a letter to him at present. Then she will grow anxious, both about him and the future of the children, and at the end of six months I give her this parcel, when the whole affair is settled and she need feel no scruples about taking the money, and then she will feel touched to remember he thought of her, and then she will relent and we will find out where he is; perhaps he may write now and then to me, and she will go to him, or he will come back to her, my poor dear Lenny!"

Having completed which pleasing programme of the Werners' future, Mrs. Mortomley ought to have gone to sleep, but she could not do so, and towards four o'clock she became so intolerant of her own wakefulness that she rose and, stealing into the room where Lenore lay fast asleep, dressed herself noiselessly and went downstairs, and, letting herself out, walked across the road and along a footpath leading to the Lea, which crossed the field in which stood the shed where she had established her factory.

Not a likely-looking building, and yet it is in the least pretentious factories that fortunes are made,-successes won; and Mrs. Mortomley thanked God every time she looked across the meadow and beheld the red-tiled roof which covered the "Hertfordshire Colour Works" that Lang had so strenuously and-as it turned out-so wisely advised her to establish.

The name of Mortomley had a certain power still, and, though the business letters were signed in Dolly's scrawl, "D. Mortomley," people did not stop to inquire whether it was an A or a D who was able to supply them with the colours they required.

Neither was the new company worse thought of because they were able to supply so very little. The public, always liable to be gulled, did not attribute this to any paucity of means of production, but rather to the extent of orders received by the "Hertfordshire Colour Company." Acting under Lang's advice, Dolly had taken the business bull by the horns, and the moment she had settled upon a residence, a neat circular informed all the customers whose names Lang could recollect, or Dolly wring at intervals out of her husband's intermittent memory, that future orders intended for Mortomley and Co. should be addressed to Newham, Herts. Further, she amazed Mr. Swanland by giving directions at the post-office that all letters intended for her husband should be forwarded to that address; and as no fewer than three other persons had applied for the letters, each claiming a right in them, the post-office was somewhat perplexed. First, Mr. Swanland, who, after Dolly had proved to him by chapter and verse that he could claim no letters after the expiration of three months from the meeting of creditors, was forced to strike his flag; secondly, the Thames Street clerk, who had-being trusted by Mr. Swanland-been opening the town letters and suppressing them during the time when the accountant had a right to their possession, and who, so far as I know, is opening and suppressing them to this day; and, third, Hankins, who, being a modified sort of blackguard, made all right with the postmen who delivered at Homewood by representing himself as Mr. Mortomley's chief in absence, and forwarded some letters and retained others.

Dolly never got a tithe of the letters; the battle was one beyond her strength to fight, but it was a battle any accountant worth his salt would have prevented ever being necessary.

Still, in spite of all, the Mortomleys were prospering. The business was a very poor and a very small affair, but, after paying Lang, who was not a cheap coadjutor, and deducting all expenses, Dolly, even in those early days, felt she could safely take a pound a week out of the returns; and, my dear readers, I can assure you that if you have ever known what it is to look nothing a year in the face, you would be very thankful indeed to be able to reckon upon fifty-two pounds as a certainty.

And so Dolly regarded the red-tiled shed gratefully, and did her work in it carefully, for still, as her husband's substitute, she had her work to do. The special amount of water required, the final grains of the special ingredient that shed a lustre over the Mortomley colours! hers it was to add those trifles which ensured success. Had the manipulation been confided to any other, the secret must have passed out of Mortomley's keeping.

Was not she faithful to her trust! Lang himself never could tell when the magic touch was given which illumined the colours they sent to market. Sometimes in the twilight, sometimes when the moonbeams streamed through the skylights, sometimes in the early, early morning, but always in due and proper time, Dolly took her slight but all-important share of the labour, and she did so on the morning after her interview with Mr. Werner.

As she did so some faint idea that perhaps he might be able hereafter to help her husband, and her husband help him, crossed her mind. She did not like Mr. Werner, but she had a vague comprehension that he was gifted with some business quality Mortomley lacked, while Mortomley had capabilities a man such as Henry Werner might materially assist to develop.

Already Dolly was beginning to experience that difficulty which always arises when labour goes into partnership with capital. Very faithfully she believed Lang was dealing with her, but he never seemed contented. He never lost an opportunity of letting her know he considered if she would only put full faith in him, the business might be quadrupled.

Jealousy, which is at the root of all strikes, had taken up its abode in Mr. Lang's bosom, and though he tried to avoid giving expression to it, still Mrs. Mortomley knew the fire was there and smouldering.

Like a bad general she kept conceding point after point to keep him in a good humour, and the result was greater dissatisfaction; and less confidence in her fairness of dealing, as week after week rolled by.

She raised his wages, for he had settled wages as a matter of course. She gave him a larger share of the profits; she allowed him unlimited control over the buying and selling; and still Mr. Lang thought himself hardly done by.

He could not say openly he wanted Mrs. Mortomley to place the whole of her husband's formul? at his discretion, but that was what he really did want; and if he had dared to make the observation, he would have remarked that no woman ought to know so much as Mrs. Mortomley had managed to learn about the process of manufacturing colours.

It was impossible for Dolly not to feel anxious about that future time, when her husband and Lang must come into collision, for she knew perfectly well he ought to have some one on whom he could depend to share the burden with him, and she did not for an instant believe he and her present factotum would be able to stable their horses together, even for a couple of months.

Therefore she could not help considering, that if, when the first trouble and worry were over, Mr. Werner and her husband liked to try to push their fortunes together, she should not feel at all sorry. Lang might have a present of a few recipes, and go away to make a fortune of his own, or he might remain and, under Mr. Werner's stricter discipline, prove more content.

Thinking in a vague rambling sort of way of all these things, Dolly walked slowly along the field-path, a little to the left of which stood the shed, which seemed in her eyes fair as any palace. There was peace in all directions. The fields whence the hay had been carried were glittering with dew, and the cows were lying with the early sun shining upon them, chewing the cud industriously.

At the end of the field flowed the Lea, and a boat was moored to the bank, indicating, as Dolly imagined, the presence of some ardent angler, though she could not discern his whereabouts.

Everything was quiet-so quiet that the stillness of the hour and the scene seemed to lay a quieting hand on Dolly's heart, which was wont sometimes to beat too rapidly and unevenly.

It seemed as if the world and its cares could not come to such a place,-as if there were some virtue of repose in that country Eden into which the serpent of strife and trouble could not enter.

And so with a light buoyant step Dolly left the main path and tripped along that leading to the shed, styled in pretentious circulars, The Hertfordshire Colour Works.

All at once she stood still, staring like one who did not believe the evidence of her senses, for as she neared the door of the works it was opened cautiously, and a man's face looked out as if reconnoitring.

At sight of Mrs. Mortomley the face was withdrawn, and the door closed with a bang.

For a second Dolly hesitated, and something as like physical fear as she had ever experienced seemed to hold her back. Though within sight of her house, she was utterly unprotected.

There was not a creature within call. There was a man, who certainly had no right on the premises, within the works, and Lang was not likely to appear for another half-hour at any rate.

Nevertheless, after that second's pause Dolly went on. She pulled out her key and put it in the lock, and found the key would not turn because the lock had been set on the inside. "Open the door whoever you may be," she cried, but there came no answer, only a sound as of some moving about, to which there succeeded a sudden stillness, then a smash of glass, then a rattle of loosened tiles, and finally a man running off as fast as his legs would take him in the direction of the Lea. He jumped into the boat she had seen moored, unloosed his rope, and seizing his oars was fifty yards distant before Mrs. Mortomley could reach the bank of the river.

She retraced her steps to the shed, and sat down beside the door until Lang should arrive.

When he did, his first comment on the affair was-

"You'll get yourself murdered one of these nights or mornings, ma'am, coming out all alone with no soul to help you if any one had a mind to do you harm."

"I shall have protection with me for the future," she said calmly. "Now, what do you suppose that man was doing here?"

"He was after the Yellow," pronounced Mr. Lang solemnly. "There'll be many a one after that now it has gone to market. There'll be people, I know, who wouldn't mind standing five hundred pounds if they could only buy our process. Like enough that fellow has burst open the drawer and gone away with the receipt."

"I do not think that very likely, as I never leave a paper of any importance in the drawer," Dolly answered.

"Well, if you carry that receipt about with you I should not care, if I was in your place, about coming across these fields alone."

"Don't talk nonsense, Lang," was the reply, "but go and get a ladder and open the door, and let us see what the man has really been doing."

When the door was opened, they found Lang's prophecy fulfilled. The drawer was broken open and all the parcels it contained abstracted.

"I'll be bound the fellow has spoiled all our colours too," remarked Mr. Lang, but in this he chanced to be mistaken. Their colours then in process of making turned out as good as ever.

"I wouldn't for fifty pounds this had happened," remarked Lang.

"Nor I, for five times fifty," Mrs. Mortomley answered; and without uttering another word, she walked slowly and thoughtfully back to Wood Cottage.