“I told you once before, Madam, men don't like this sort of protectorate. The old bullying days are gone by. Modern decorum 'takes it out' in damages.” She sat still and silent; and after waiting some time, he said, in a calm, unmoved voice, “These little interchanges of courtesy do no good to either of us; they haven't even the poor attraction of novelty; so, as my friend Mr. O'Reardon says, let us 'be practical.' I had hoped that the old gentleman upstairs was going to do the polite thing, and die; but it appears now he has changed his mind about it. This, to say the least of it, is very inconvenient to me. My embarrassments are such that I shall be obliged to leave the country; my only difficulty is, I have no money. Are you attending? Are you listening to me?” “Yes, I hear you,” said she, in a faint whisper. “_You_, I know, cannot help me; neither can my mother. Of course the old Judge is out of the question. As for the fellows at the Club, I am deeply in debt to many of them; and Kincaid only reminds me of his unsettled bill of costs when I ask for a loan. A blank look-out, on the whole; isn't it?” She muttered something like assent, and he went on. “I have gone through a good many such storms before, but none fully as bad as this; because there are certain things which in a few days must come out--ugly little disclosures--one or two there will be. I inadvertently sold that beech timber to two different fellows, and took the money too.” She lifted up her face, and stared at him without speaking. “Fact, I assure you! I have a confoundedly bad memory; it has got me into scores of scrapes all through life. Then, this very evening, thinking that the Chief could n't rub through, I made a stupid wager with Balfour that the seat on the Bench would be vacant within a week; and finished my bad run of luck by losing--I can't say how much, but very heavily, indeed--at the Club.” A low faint sigh escaped her, but not a word. “As to bills renewed, protested, and to be protested,” said he, in the same easy tone, “they are legion. These take their course, and are no worse than any other man's bills; I don't fret myself about _them_. As in the old days of chivalry one never cared how scurvily he treated the 'villeins,' so he behaved like a knight to his equals; so nowadays a man must book up at Tattersall's though he cheat his tailor. I like the theory too; it keeps 'the ball rolling,' if it does nothing else.” All this he rattled out as though his own fluency gave him a sort of Dutch courage; and who knows, too,--for there is a fund of vanity in these men,--if he was not vain of showing with what levity he could treat dangers that might have made the stoutest heart afraid? “Taking the 'tottle of the whole' of these,--as old Joe Hume used to say,--it's an ugly balance!” “What do you mean to do?” said she, quietly. “Bolt, I suppose. I see nothing else for it.” “And will that meet the difficulty?”