Sir Ranald had waited for change of fortune, for something to turn up, year after year, as old Indian officers used to wait for the Deccan prize money, as a means of liquidating accumulated debt--means that never came; and now Cadbury's offer had come to hand like a trump card in the game with Fortune! 'I cannot live for ever, Alison, think of that,' said he, after a long silence. Alison had thought of it, and loving, yea, adoring her father as she did, the fear that she should one day surely lose him made her heart shrink up and seem to die within her. She would be alone--most terribly alone in this bleak world--when that event came to pass; and she recalled the cruel words of Lord Cadburv, that 'he could not live for ever,' with peculiar bitterness now. To whom, then, could she cling if not to Bevil Goring? 'Shall I write to Cadbury that you say "Yes," Alison?' There were great, hopeless tears standing in her dark blue eyes, her quivering lips were tightly pressed together, and her slender white fingers were tightly interlaced, as she replied-- 'Papa, I would rather die first!' 'And this is your irrevocable answer?' 'It is.' Two days passed now--days of unspeakable misery to Alison, before whom her father again and again set all his monetary troubles, his present misery, and too probable future ruin, till her heart was wrung and her soul tortured within her by a conviction of her own selfishness in not making a sacrifice of herself and Bevil Goring; but her love of the latter on the one hand, and her horror and repugnance of Lord Cadbury on the other, prevailed, and Sir Ranald found that he could neither lure nor bend her to their purpose. After this he wrote a letter to Cadbury full of expressions of gratitude for the honour done himself and his daughter (he snorted when he wrote the word 'honour'), and with hopes that the latter would yet see the folly of delay--(it was, he felt assured, only a little delay, she would no doubt give her acceptance). He felt himself too deeply in Cadbury's debt even to hint that she had refused to consider his proposal of marriage in any way but one--with dismay and aversion. Lord Cadbury, however, saw precisely how the matter stood, for rumours of the meetings at the beeches had reached him, and he viciously tugged his long, white, horse-shoe-like mustaches. Then he tore Sir Ranald's letter into minute fragments, and with an expression of anger--even of malignancy---in his cunning eyes, prepared to take the first train to town, muttering the while-- 'We shall see, my pretty Alison--we shall see!' CHAPTER XII. IN ST. CLEMENT'S LANE.