rest off our minds in time, but we shall never be allowed to forget the
fifty pounds of the detestable Boult."

"He was poor papa's friend--the only one. He was good to papa," Deleah
said, but to herself alone. For in that unhappy household was a law,
unwritten, unspoken, but binding none the less, that the name of the
husband and father should never be spoken.

"We must remember that the fifty pounds seems a great deal to him," Mrs.
Day reminded them. "The least we can do is to pay him the compliment of
telling him what we intend to do with the money."

However, she found, on interviewing George Boult, that no such delicate
attention was expected from her. The money he had raised was money for him
to handle--for the benefit of Mrs. Day and her children of course, but
without reference to what might be their feelings in the matter.

He was not a man to doubt his own wisdom, or to seek to confirm an opinion
with the approval of others, or to hesitate in the pursuit of a course
which to his perceptions appeared desirable. Also, having mapped out his
plan or set out on his chosen path he never afterwards allowed to himself
that there were others. A simple method which reduced to nothing for him
the chances of regret or mental worry.

He was an eminently successful tradesman. His draper's business, which had
been on a par with the businesses of half a dozen drapers when he had
originally started in Brockenham, was now easily the first of its kind,
not only in the town but in the county. It was natural that he should
believe in trade--natural that he should fix his faith to nothing else as
a means of money-making.