Alison, as if the visitor's presence was to her insupportable, arose, and muttering some excuse, she knew not what, withdrew to her own room. In Sir Ranald's eyes there was a passionate and despairing expression of pain that wrung the very soul of Alison; but still, she thought, why should the love of her youth, and why should _her_ whole future life be sacrificed for one who had enjoyed his long life to the full, and all because her grandfather had been, like her father, a spendthrift! Cadbury took in the whole situation; all that he anticipated had come to pass; the result was exactly what he had foreseen, and he now hoped that he would be able to triumph over Alison, whose repugnance for him piqued his pride and excited his revenge. 'What is the matter, Cheyne--you look seriously unwell?' said he, with well-feigned interest. 'You find me a sorely broken man,' replied Sir Ranald, in a hollow voice, as he took the hand of his visitor and begged him to be seated. 'Ruin has overtaken me at last, Cadbury.' 'I think I can guess,' said the latter, tugging at his long white moustaches; 'but tell me in what form.' In a few words, but with intense shame and mortification of spirit, Sir Ranald told of Slagg's threatening letter, and of all that his listener had been aware of days before. 'And these acceptances must be met?' 'But how, Cadbury--how? I might as well attempt to make a river run up a hill.' 'What is before you?' asked the peer, a cunning smile twinkling in his eyes, unseen by his visitor. 'Death or disgrace!' 'Disgrace in what fashion?' 'Arrest or flight.' Cadbury continued to pull each of his moustaches in a kind of nervous way, and after a minute's silence he said, with a kind of laugh, 'I think I can help you.' 'I am not a man who has been used to seek help from others,' said Sir Ranald, with a little of his old pride of bearing. Lord Cadbury coughed and smiled as he thought of more than one cheque given to the speaker, and by the latter apparently forgotten. 'Under this terrible pressure, have you spoken of my proposal to--to Miss Cheyne?' he asked, bluntly. 'Yes.' 'And with what result--for she knows what I can do, if I choose?' 'None--none!' 'Even to save you, she will not marry me?' 'No.' 'No!' 'At least, I have totally failed to extract an answer from her.' Lord Cadbury's ferret-like eyes flashed; he actually ground his teeth and clenched his coarse, vulgar hands. 'Look here, Cheyne--if I take up your paper and pay Slagg, could you not force her--I say, force----' 'Hush--she might fall ill and die, as her mother died, of a decline,' groaned Sir Ranald. 'Oh! not a bit, not a bit,' said Cadbury; 'but change of air will do her good. Let us get her out of this place, anyway.' 'The fact is, she has a fancy for that infantry fellow, Bevil Goring, at Aldershot,' said Sir Ranald, who carefully omitted to state that Alison had admitted her engagement.