'Do you mean to tell me,' he asked, 'that they would turn me out of house and home?' And he looked around his comfortably-furnished room. 'It is more than probable,' I replied. 'I know the lawyers with whom you have to deal. This house is your own freehold, and its value is included in the statement.' He clasped his hands despairingly; I was silent, despising his weakness. 'Can't you advise me?' he cried. 'If ruin came to you, what would you do?' 'Bear it,' I replied. I was growing weary of him. 'Have you any children?' he asked. 'No,' I replied. 'Nor wife perhaps?' he continued. 'Nor wife, nor child, nor friend,' I said, rising. 'What are you going to do?' he cried. 'For God's sake, don't leave me! You have undertaken the conduct of my affairs, and you will surely not desert me when your services are most needed?' The observation was a just one, and I resumed my seat. I should not have attempted to leave so abruptly had it not been that his manner of addressing me had irritated me. He had spoken to me as though our positions were not equal, almost as though I were a dependent, and it was because of this that I had answered him roughly. His manner was now changed; it became almost servile. He implored me to suggest a plan by which he could be released from his liabilities, and he revealed sufficient of his true nature to convince me that he would have shrunk from no meanness to accomplish his desire. Perhaps, however, I do him injustice; perhaps I should rather say that he convinced me he had no sense of moral responsibility in the matter. I resolved to come to the point at once, and I told him that I saw absolutely no way but one in which he could free himself from his liabilities, and that even that way, supposing his creditors were hard, would be difficult and harassing. It was by offering to give up the whole of his property on the condition of obtaining a clear release. 'But then I shall be beggared,' he exclaimed, pressing his hand to his heart. 'It is cruel--merciless!' 'It is just,' I said sternly. 'Your creditors have more right to complain than you. 'There is another plan, certainly, by which you might be enabled to keep possession of your house.' He asked me eagerly what it was, and I said that if he had a friend who would come forward and advance the necessary sum, his creditors would almost certainly accept it; but he informed me that he had no such friend, and that he and his daughter were alone in the world. Upon mention of his daughter, as if he had conjured her up, she entered the room. I do not know how to describe the effect of her appearance upon me. It was like the breaking of the sun upon one who had lived in the dark all his life. Mr. Glaive, clutching my arm, drew me close to him, and whispered to me that _that_ was the reason he could not contemplate the ruin before him with a calm mind.