"I don't want that. What you think, or what you tell Bessie. I want facts
to go upon. Without facts you can't expect me to act."

"I really do not wish you to act, William."

"Leave that to me. I am not asking what you wish," William snapped at her;
and then turning on his side he seemed to go to sleep.




CHAPTER II

Something Wrong At The Office


Mrs. Day had decided to spend the first morning of the New Year in
superintending the relaying of the drawing-room carpet and the reducing
her house to its habitual order after the dance. Bessie had decided
otherwise. She had decided that she should be driven in the carriage, her
mother beside her, to some flooded and frozen meadows, three miles out of
the town, where many of the young people who had danced last night had
arranged to go to skate. Deleah and the boys had started to walk there
immediately after breakfast. Bessie, who could not skate, wished to be
there also, but did not choose to walk, and could not be allowed to be in
the carriage alone.

The girl, very fair and pretty in her velvet jacket with the ermine
collar and cuffs, seated in the victoria by her mother's side, eagerly
scanned the broad expanse of ice for the familiar figure of the young man