"Ma'am, I cannot--that is, Mr. Ashley cannot. It was a reprehensible piece of carelessness on my part to suffer the rent to go on for half a year, considering that you were strangers. Mr. Ashley will look to me to see him well out of it." "There is sufficient furniture in my house, new furniture, to pay what is owing three times over." "May be, as it stands in it. Things worth forty pounds in a house, won't fetch ten at a sale." "That is an additional reason why I----" "Now, my good lady," interrupted Mr. Dare, with imperative civility, "one word is as good as a thousand; and that word I have said. I cannot withdraw the seizure, except on receipt of the rent and costs. Pay them, and I shall be most happy to do it. If you stop here all night I can give you no other answer; and my time is valuable." He glanced at the door as he spoke. Jane took the hint, and passed out of it. As much by the tone, as by the words, she gathered that there was no hope whatever. The streets were bright with gas as she hurried along, her head bent, her veil over her face, her tears falling silently. But when she left the town behind her, and approached a lonely part of the road where no eye was on her, no ear near her, then the sobs burst forth uncontrolled. "No eye on her? no ear near her?" Ay, but there was! There was one Eye, one Ear, which never closes. And as Jane's dreadful trouble resolved itself into a cry for help to Him who ever listens, there seemed to come a feeling of peace, of _trust_, into her soul. CHAPTER XVII. THOMAS ASHLEY. Frank met her as she went in. It was dark; but she kept her veil down. "Oh, mamma, that's the most horrible man!" he began, in a whisper. "You know the cheese you brought in on Saturday, that we might not eat our bread quite dry; well, he has eaten it up, every morsel, and half a loaf of bread! And he has burnt the whole scuttleful of coal! And he swore because there was no meat; and he swore at us because we would not go to the public-house and buy him some beer. He said we were to buy it and pay for it." "I said you would not allow us to go, mamma," interrupted William, who now came up. "I told him that if he wanted beer he must go and get it for himself. I spoke civilly, you know, not rudely. He went into such a passion, and said such things! It is a good thing Jane was out." "Where is Gar?" she asked. "Gar was frightened at the man, and the tobacco-smoke made him sick, and he cried; and then he lay down on the floor, and went to sleep." _She_ felt sick. She drew her two boys into the parlour--dark there, except for the lamp in the road, which shone in. Pressing them in her arms, completely subdued by the miseries of her situation, she leaned her forehead upon William's shoulder, and burst once more into a most distressing flood of tears. They were alarmed. They cried with her. "Oh, mamma! what is it? Why don't you order the man to go away?"