"My dear, there was no time. It fell on him at that very moment--the stroke! He never spoke again. Those were his last words, `Margaret! Margaret!'--as he used to call to me when we were young, before you children were born." There was evident solace in the remembrance, despite the tears which it evoked. Mary made a futile effort to conjure up a picture of youthful parents, loving each other, living in happy comradeship, and then reverted to her mother's words of a few moments before. "Bad news! Speculations?... How much had he lost?" Mrs Mallison's hands twitched, she clasped them tightly upon her knee. "He said--all! He said--ruin! It's too early yet to be sure. Mr Maitland will make enquiries... I knew he had been selling out shares. I thought it was to reinvest in some better security. Papa was always close about business. If he speculated with the principal, and it has gone, it will be"--the hands jerked once more--"ruin!" "You will have five hundred a year, Mother," Mary said quietly. "Teresa will marry, and you and I--we can be quite comfortable on five hundred a year." Mrs Mallison's eyes shot out a sideways glance, and beheld before her the Mary of old, seated with bowed back and bowed head in her old chair in the corner by the fire-place, and the year that had passed rolled from her memory like a worrying dream. "Of course," she said briskly, "we must remove. There will be no necessity for so many rooms. If we put out the washing we can manage quite nicely with one maid, and you to assist in the mornings. After being idle for so long, you will enjoy making yourself of use." "I think I shall," said Mary. And she meant it. The maid brought in the tray at that moment, the subject was necessarily dropped. Probably a fortune of ten thousand pounds has never changed hands so swiftly and silently! From that hour to the day of her death, Mrs Mallison showed no sign of realising that she was living on her daughter's money, not her own. The tea was poured out, the muffin was brought in, piping hot, under its silver cover, before Teresa made her appearance, and Mary, staring with blank eyes at a tall, thin girl, with pale cheeks and listless eyes, felt that this was not the Teresa of yore, but a stranger with whom she had no acquaintance. The sisters embraced, in silence, and with a listlessness as pronounced on one side as the other. There was no sign in Teresa's manner of the remorseful affection which her letter had expressed. "She looks--like me!" said Mary to herself, and her eyes strayed to her sister's left hand. The flash of diamonds showed that there was no avowed breach with Dane, though the mystery of the deferred marriage was still to be solved. Mary found no clue thereto in her mother's continued monologue, though it was discursive enough to take in the whole countryside.