“Is this how you keep your promise, mother?”

“Promise?  Did I promise to look on at wicked waste?  Do you want to bring us to the workhouse, child?”

“Don’t let us waste time in talking about what we settled a month ago,” replied Bertha decisively.  “Sarah is doing very well, and there must be no change.  I am quite content to pay her wages myself.  Keep your promise, mother, and let us live quietly and decently.”

“If you call it living decently to pamper a servant until she bursts with insolence—­”

“When was Sarah insolent to you?  She has never been disrespectful to me.  Quite the contrary, I think her a very good servant indeed.  You know that I have a good deal of work to do just now, and—­to speak quite plainly—­I can’t let you upset the orderly life of the house.  Be quiet, there’s a dear.  I insist upon it.”

Speaking thus, Bertha laid her hands on her mother’s shoulders, and looked into the foolish, angry face so steadily, so imperturbably, with such a light of true kindness in her gentle eyes, yet at the same time such resolution about the well-drawn lips that Mrs. Cross had no choice but to submit.  Grumbling she turned; sullenly she held her tongue for the rest of the day; but Bertha, at all events for a time, had conquered.

The Crosses knew little and saw less of their kith and kin.  With her husband’s family, Mrs. Cross had naturally been on cold terms from an early period of her married life; she held no communication with any of the name, and always gave Bertha to understand that, in one way or another, the paternal uncles and aunts had “behaved very badly.”  Of her own blood, she had only a brother ten years younger than herself, who was an estate agent at Worcester.  Some seven years had elapsed since their last meeting, on which occasion Mrs. Cross had a little difference of opinion with her sister-in-law.  James Rawlings was now a widower, with three children, and during the past year or two not unfriendly letters had been exchanged between Worcester and Walham Green.  Utterly at a loss for a, means of passing her time, Mrs. Cross, in these days of domestic suppression, renewed the correspondence, and was surprised by an invitation to pass a few days at her brother’s house.  This she made known to Bertha about a week after the decisive struggle.

“Of course, you are invited, too, but—­I’m afraid you are too busy?”

Amused by her mother’s obvious wish to go to Worcester unaccompanied, Bertha answered that she really didn’t see how she was to spare the time just now.

“But I don’t like to leave you alone here—­”

Her daughter laughed at this scruple.  She was just as glad of the prospect of a week’s solitude as her mother in the thought of temporary escape from the proximity of pampered Sarah.  The matter was soon arranged, and Mrs. Cross left home.

This was a Friday.  The next day, sunshine and freedom putting her in holiday mood, Bertha escaped into the country, and had a long ramble like that, a year ago, on which she had encountered Norbert Franks.  Sunday morning she spent quietly at home.  For the afternoon she had invited a girl friend.  About five o’clock, as they were having tea, Bertha heard a knock at the front door.  She heard the servant go to open, and, a moment after, Sarah announced, “Mr. Warburton.”