"I would much rather stand," she said. "I don't know what you have to say to me; but I hope that, whatever it is, it won't take long; I feel as if I can't sit; I would much sooner listen standing if you don't mind." But the doctor did mind; he would not have it; he made her sit. Then nothing would satisfy her but that Elaine should sit by her; which was agony to Miss Harding, who was in the condition which is known as being all over pins and needles; it would have been a relief to have been able to scream. "Now, Nash," inquired the doctor, when the two young women, looking, in their several ways, pictures of misery, were seated on adjacent chairs, "where are those papers? Let's get to business; and be as brief and as clear as you can." Nash, with what was almost a hang-dog air, took some papers out of a black leather bag. Untying the tape which bound them together he began. His tale was neither very brief nor very clear; though his meaning was plain enough when it was ended. The dead man had left everything to his daughter; but he had nothing to leave; that was what it came to. There was less than a hundred pounds at the bank; and there was Cloverlea and the contents of the house. On the debit side there were debts amounting, so far as could be ascertained, to several thousand pounds; claims had come in from wholly unexpected quarters for large sums. If they had to be paid at once that would involve a forced sale of Cloverlea, and that would probably mean that very little would be left for Nora. The faces of the two girls, as this state of affairs was being unfolded, were studies. On Miss Harding's face there came, by degrees, an expression of actual agony, as if her lover was playing the part of a torturer, whose every word was a fresh turn of the rack, or of the thumbscrew. Nora's face, on the other hand, as she began to perceive the point at which Mr. Nash was aiming, suggested anger rather than pain; the same suggestion was in her voice, as she addressed a question to him, so soon as he showed signs of having finished. "Do you wish me to understand that my father has left no money?" Mr. Nash looked down, as if unwilling to meet her eyes. "Neither Dr. Banyard nor I have been able to find anything which points to money, I am sorry to say." "You needn't be sorry." She turned to Dr. Banyard; with, as she did so, something in her manner which was hardly flattering to Mr. Nash. "If my father has left no money on what have we been living? Does Mr. Nash mean that my father spent all his money before he died? because, if he does, I tell him, quite plainly, that I don't believe it." The doctor got up. It was a peculiarity of his that, while he was always anxious that others should sit still, he never could do so himself when he was moved. Thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets he began to fidget about the room.