"You find me very unhappy," said she, drying her eyes (gently, so as not to make them unbecomingly red). "Why have you never been to see me?" This, turning on him abruptly, and with a degree of displeasure that ought to have raised his highest hopes. "I've been away," he stammered, "in the North on business. I--I didn't know you wanted me." "Oh, it's not _that_!" she answered pettishly. "Of course, one can't expect people to put off business, or pleasure, or anything else for the sake of their friends. What's the _use_ of friends? What's the use of caring for anything or anybody? I wish I didn't. I shouldn't be so upset now!" In his entire participation of her sorrow, he quite lost his own embarrassment. "Can I do anything?" he exclaimed. "There's the _will_, you know, even if there isn't the power." "Nothing, that I can see," she answered drearily. "Here's a letter from Sir Henry Hallaton. They're completely ruined, he tells me; a regular smash! What is to become of them? I'm so wretched, particularly about Helen." She put her handkerchief to her face once more, but watched her listener narrowly, nevertheless. It did not escape her that his countenance changed and fell, as if he had been stung. He recovered himself bravely, though. "That is distressing enough," said he, "and sounds a bad business, no doubt. Still, it is only a question of money, I suppose. It might have been worse." "Worse!" she repeated, with impatience. "I don't see how. From what he says, it seems they won't have a roof to cover them--hardly bread to eat! And what can I do for him? I can't pay off his mortgages, and buy him back Blackgrove, as if it was a baby-house. It _does_ seem so hard! It makes me hate everything and everybody!" Goldthred's only reply to this rational sentiment was to rise from his chair, button his coat, and place himself in a determined attitude on the hearth-rug. "You seem very miserable," said he; and the man's voice was so changed that she started as if a stranger had come into the room. "I think I can understand why--no, don't explain anything, Mrs. Lascelles, but listen to me--you are unhappy. To the best of my power I will help you. Somebody that you--well--that you like very much is in difficulties. If I can extricate him, I will. You needn't hate everything or everybody any longer," he added, with rather a sad smile; "and you may believe that, though people do not put off their business nor their pleasure for them, they can sometimes sacrifice their interests to their friends." How noble he seemed standing there--so kind, so good, so utterly unselfish and true! How she loved him! She had long guessed it. She knew it too surely now. Yet she could not forbear taking the last arrow from her quiver, and sending it home to his honest, unsuspecting heart.