About an hour ago, ma’am.” Feather dropped her hand from the knob of the door and trailed back to the chair she had left, sinking into it helplessly.

“Who—who will dress me?” she half wailed.

“I don’t know, ma’am,” replied the young footman, his excellent manner presuming no suggestion or opinion whatever. He added however, “Cook, ma’am, wishes to speak to you.”

“Tell her to come to me here,” Feather said. “And I—I want a cup of beef tea.”

“Yes, ma’am,” with entire respect. And the door closed quietly behind him.

It was not long before it was opened again. “Cook” had knocked and Feather had told her to come in. Most cooks are stout, but this one was not. She was a thin, tall woman with square shoulders and a square face somewhat reddened by constant proximity to fires. She had been trained at a cooking school. She carried a pile of small account books but she brought nothing else.

“I wanted some beef tea, Cook,” said Feather protestingly.

“There is no beef tea, ma’am,” said Cook. “There is neither beef, nor stock, nor Liebig in the house.”

“Why—why not?” stammered Feather and she stammered because even her lack of perception saw something in the woman’s face which was new to her. It was a sort of finality.

She held out the pile of small books.

“Here are the books, ma’am,” was her explanation. “Perhaps as you don’t like to be troubled with such things, you don’t know how far behind they are. Nothing has been paid for months. It’s been an every-day fight to get the things that was wanted. It’s not an agreeable thing for a cook to have to struggle and plead. I’ve had to do it because I had my reputation to think of and I couldn’t send up rubbish when there was company.”

Feather felt herself growing pale as she sat and stared at her. Cook drew near and laid one little book after another on the small table near her.

“That’s the butcher’s book,” she said. “He’s sent nothing in for three days. We’ve been living on leavings. He’s sent his last, he says and he means it. This is the baker’s. He’s not been for a week. I made up rolls because I had some flour left. It’s done now—and he’s done. This is groceries and Mercom & Fees wrote to Mr. Gareth-Lawless when the last month’s supply came, that it would be the last until payment was made. This is wines—and coal and wood—and laundry—and milk. And here is wages, ma’am, which can’t go on any longer.”

Feather threw up her hands quite wildly.

“Oh, go away!—go away!” she cried. “ If Mr. Lawless were here—”

“He isn’t, ma’am,” Cook interposed, not fiercely but in a way more terrifying than any ferocity could have been—a way which pointed steadily to the end of things.