Mrs. Day was silent, but her silence was eloquent. With shaking fingers
she tied her bonnet strings--the wide black strings that wanted pulling
out, the narrow white ones which must be arranged above them.

Boult, seeing that she was preparing to depart, assumed a more friendly
tone. "You must not feel that you are being hustled into this thing," he
said. "The money is, of course, in a sense, yours, although I have had to
decide what to do with it."

Mrs. Day rose to go, Boult came forward with his hand extended.

"Anything that has to do with the people's food or drink _pays_," he said
encouragingly. "If I had my time over again I would take up with the
groshery line instead of the drapery. People must have food, ma'am. They
must have it, even before frocks and furbelows."

"About Bernard?" Mrs. Day asked, waiving, not without dignity, the other
subject.

"I have thought of sending Bernard to Ingleby. I have opened a branch
there. It is not a big concern at present, of course, but the boy can
learn the business there, and if he has anything in him--I shall keep my
eye on him--he can come to us later."

Then he grasped the hand she unwillingly extended.

"You see I promised poor William," he told her, by way of explaining his
kind interest in her affairs. "And however thankless the task may be, I
shall keep my word."