26o The Real Charlotte. 



introduced ; " but I'd be glad if you could find some things 

 for Julia Duffy ; I suppose she'll be coming out of the 

 infirmary soon. What we're to do about that business I 

 don't know," he continued, filling another pipe. " Dysart 

 said he wouldn't have her put out if she could hold on 

 anyway at all — " 



" Heavenly powers ! " exclaimed Charlotte, letting fall a 

 collection of roUed-up kid gloves, " d'ye mean to say you 

 didn't hear she's in the Ballinasloe Asylum ? She was sent 

 there three days ago.'* 



" Great Scot ! Is she gone mad ? I was thinking all 

 this time what I was to do with her ! " 



" Well, you needn't trouble your head about her any 

 more. Her wits went as her body mended, and a board of 

 J.P.'s and M.D.'s sat upon her, and as one of them was old 

 Fatty FfoUiott, you won't be surprised to hear that that was 

 the end of Julia Duffy." 



Both laughed, and both felt suddenly the incongruity of 

 laughter in that room. Charlotte went back to the chest 

 of drawers whose contents she was ransacking, and con- 

 tinued : 



" They say she sits all day counting her fingers and toes 

 and calling them chickens and turkeys, and saying that she 

 has the key of Gurthnamuckla in her pocket, and not a one 

 can get into it without her leave." 



'* And are you still on for it ? " said Lambert, half re- 

 luctantly, as it seemed to Charlotte's acute ear, " lor if you 

 are, now's your time. I might have put her out of it two 

 years ago for non-payment of rent, and I'll just take posses- 

 sion and sell off what she has left behind her towards the 

 arrears." 



" On for it ? Of course T am. You might know I'm not 

 one to change my mind about a thing I'm set upon. But 

 you'll have to let me down easy with the fine, Roddy. 

 There isn't much left in the stocking these times, and 

 one or two of my poor little dabblings in the money-market 

 have rather ' gone agin me' " 



Lambert thought in a moment of those hundreds that 

 had been lent to him, and stirred uneasily in his chair. 

 " By the way, Charlotte," he said, trying to speak like a 

 man to whom such things were trifles, " about that money 



