The journey was hurried over with small regard to her comfort and convenience, but Margaret heeded nothing; the thoughts of once more being within reach of Grace supported her through fatigue and all else. She was quite aware as regarded her husband that had she chosen to flatter him, and had she only been able to stoop a little, she might have ruled him, but her principle was too high for this, and she made a point of being honest with him to her own loss. When they reached London it was yet early in the morning, and they went, greatly to her surprise, to a small and very second-rate hotel in the City, where everything was dingy and mean. "Are we not going home?" Margaret asked, astonished. Mr. Drayton laughed uneasily. "The truth is that there are some people in my house." "Oh! it is let," said Margaret, in a tone of disappointment. "Then what are we to do?" "We might take lodgings--they must not be far from here, and then we can see----" He turned on his heel and left her. When she had rested, she started in a cab to look for lodgings--a weary quest--and all she saw near that part of London were so dingy and so dirty that she returned to the hotel in despair. Her husband came in looking so white and so utterly broken down that she could not imagine what had happened; but he would tell her nothing. The landlady to whom Margaret spoke suggested some rooms in the country close to a station. "As you think so much of cleanliness and fresh air, you had better go there, ma'm." "It is only for a little while--my husband let his place and cannot turn out his tenants before their time is up," said Margaret, happily unconscious what a falsehood this was. She liked the rooms; and then, when they paid their bill and were leaving, her husband made her understand a little how things were. Throwing a handful of silver on the table he exclaimed, angrily, "There! that is every penny I have in the world." Margaret stared at him--want of money had never yet presented itself to her in connection with him. She did not now understand him literally, but she was startled. That evening, cheered by the bright cleanliness of the little cottage at Chiselhurst to which they had removed, she asked him to tell her what was wrong. Then he told her. "I have lost everything!" he said. "I have not a shilling in the world left, except that money settled upon you. I am ruined--I do not suppose I shall have anything to live upon at all," and he laid his head upon his arms and cried like a child. "Is there nothing I can do?" faltered Margaret. "Yes!" he said. "You can go away, Mr. Sandford will take you--you can go. Our married life has been a short, if it has not been a merry, one," he said, bitterly, and he burst into a laugh so wild that Margaret left the room. She wrote a long letter to Mr. Sandford; understanding him too well to appeal to him for assistance, she asked him to come and look into everything.