"Patience! Wait! Do you know what you are talking about? Do you prate of patience, and waiting, and hope in the future to a man who has no future--to a man whose days are numbered, and who feels the creeping chills of death stealing over him every day as he sits beside his wretched hearth, or labours through his daily drudgery? I can live as I have always lived! Yes; but do you know, or care to know, that with every day life becomes more difficult for me? Your fine friends at Bayswater have done with me. I have spent the last sixpence I shall ever see from Philip Sheldon. Hawkehurst has cut me, like the ungrateful hound he is. When they have squeezed the orange, they throw away the rind. Didn't Voltaire say that, when Frederick of Prussia gave him the go-by? Heaven knows it's true enough; and now you, who by a word might secure yourself a splendid position--yes, I say splendid for a poor drudge and dependent like you, and insure a home for me--you, forsooth, must needs favour me with your high-flown sentiments about your sense of right, and promise me a home in the future, if I will wait and hope! No, Diana, waiting and hoping are done with for me, and I can find a home in the bed of the river without your help." "You would not be so wicked as to do that!" cried Diana, aghast. "I don't know about the wickedness of the act. But, rely upon it, when my choice lies between the workhouse and the river, I shall prefer the river. The modern workhouse is no inviting sanctuary, and I dare say many a homeless wretch makes the same choice." For some minutes there was silence. Diana stood with her elbows resting on the chimneypiece, her face covered with her hands. "O Lord, teach me to do the thing which is right!" she prayed, and in the next breath acted on the impulse of the moment. "What would you have me do?" she asked. "What any one but an idiot would do of her own accord--accept the good fortune that has dropped into your lap. Do you think such luck as yours goes begging every day?" "You would have me accept Gustave Lenoble's offer, no matter what falsehoods may be involved in my acceptance of it?" "I can see no reason for falsehood. Any one but an idiot would honour such a man; any one but an idiot would thank Providence for such good fortune." "Very well, papa," exclaimed Diana, with a laugh that had no mirthful music, "I will not be the exceptional idiot. If M. Lenoble does me the honour to repeat his offer--and I think from his manner he means to do so--I will accept it."