“I did not realise that things were quite so bad,” she murmured. “Then I suppose that the place will be taken from us, and we shall—shall have to go away.” “Yes, certainly, unless money can be found to take up the mortgages, of which I see no chance. The place will be sold for what it will fetch, and that now-a-days will be no great sum.” “When will that be?” she asked. “In about six or nine months’ time.” Ida’s lips trembled, and the sight of the food upon her plate became nauseous to her. A vision arose before her mind’s eye of herself and her old father departing hand in hand from the Castle gates, behind and about which gleamed the hard wild lights of a March sunset, to seek a place to hide themselves. The vivid horror of the phantasy almost overcame her. “Is there no way of escape?” she asked hoarsely. “To lose this place would kill my father. He loves it better than anything in the world; his whole life is wrapped up in it.” “I can quite understand that, Miss de la Molle; it is a most charming old place, especially to anybody interested in the past. But unfortunately mortgagees are no respecters of feelings. To them land is so much property and nothing more.” “I know all that,” she said impatiently, “you do not answer my question;” and she leaned towards him, resting her hand upon the table. “Is there no way out of it?” Mr. Quest drank a little claret before he answered. “Yes,” he said, “I think that there is, if only you will take it.” “What way?” she asked eagerly. “Well, though as I said just now, the mortgagees of an estate as a body are merely a business corporation, and look at things from a business point of view only, you must remember that they are composed of individuals, and that individuals can be influenced if they can be got at. For instance, Cossey and Son are an abstraction and harshly disposed in their abstract capacity, but Mr. Edward Cossey is an individual, and I should say, so far as this particular matter is concerned, a benevolently disposed individual. Now Mr. Edward Cossey is not himself at the present moment actually one of the firm of Cossey and Son, but he is the heir of the head of the house, and of course has authority, and, what is better still, the command of money.” “I understand,” said Ida. “You mean that my father should try to win over Mr. Edward Cossey. Unfortunately, to be frank, he dislikes him, and my father is not a man to keep his dislikes to himself.”