"We must not worry him," I told Sir Appleton. "Cannot you and I talk over ways and means together? I have no idea what to suggest. As you know, my husband and I are paupers..." _He_, if any one, after all that he had taken upon himself, was the man to help us out of our difficulty. "I have a scheme," he said, "but your son had better hear it, as he will be a party to it." I could have gone on my knees to him for a crust of bread... It could hardly have been deliberate--this policy of starvation--, but I was _strongly_ reminded of very similar treatment from a certain general in the War Office ... who shall be nameless. You remember my difficulty about Will's commission; he was on _fire_, of course, to go into the infantry. "Do you," I asked him, "think you are serving your country by spending one day in the trenches and six months in hospital with rheumatic fever?" And, when I had _wasted_ argument and entreaty on _him_, I carried my appeal to Cæsar. On the _staff_ my boy would have been worth his weight in gold; anything else was simply a short cut to hospital. I told this general ... when at _last_ I contrived to see him; and his method of receiving me was to keep me standing--not a chair to be seen in the room!--with all the windows open, a gale blowing and no fire. I made him see reason at the end, but I was in bed for a week afterwards... I wondered whether Sir Appleton was trying to starve me into submission... His plan... I wish you could have heard it in his own words! The impudence and brutality... "If you've no money yourself, Lady Ann," he said, "you've rich relations. Lord Brackenbury, I am sure, would give a substantial sum to start his nephew in life. And so would your brother-in-law, Lord Spenworth. I have spoken to both and demonstrated that your son will be at the other side of the world for probably a number of years with no opportunity of coming to them, as in the past, when he needed assistance. They both seemed disposed to help, but felt that the first step should be taken by you. I have ascertained that the lease of your house--" "You would like," I interrupted, "to sell the roof over my head! Why not the clothes off my back?"