To quiet this troublesome ghost she agreed to part with four hundred a year. A third of her means was, therefore, taken away with one fell swoop. Loftus must still have his allowance, for Loftus of all people must know nothing of his mother's anxieties. Mrs. Bertram and her girls would, therefore, have barely five hundred a year to live on. Out of this sum she would still struggle to save, but she knew she could save but little. She knew that all chance of introducing Catherine and Mabel into society was at an end. She had dreamed dreams for her girls, and these dreams must come to nothing. She had hoped many things for them both, she had thought that all her care and trouble would receive its fruition some day in Catherine's establishment, and that Mabel would also marry worthily. In playing with her grandchildren by-and-bye, Mrs. Bertram thought that she might relax her anxieties and feel that her labors had not been in vain. She must put these hopes aside now, for her girls would probably never marry. They would live on at this dull old Manor until their youth had left them, and their sweet, fresh bloom departed. Mrs. Bertram thought of the girls, but no compunctions with regard to them caused her to hesitate even for a moment. She loved some one else much better than these bright-eyed lasses. Loftus was the darling of his mother's heart. It was bad to sacrifice girls, but it was impossible to sacrifice the beloved and only son. Mrs. Bertram saw her solicitors, confided to them her difficulties, and accepted the terms proposed to her by the enemy, who, treacherous and awful, had suddenly risen out of the ashes of the past to confront her. With four hundred a year she bought silence, and silence meant everything for her. Thus she saved herself, and one at least belonging to her, from open shame. She received Catherine's telegram, and was made aware that Josephine Hart had come down to spy out the nakedness of the land. She felt herself, however, in a position to defy Josephine, and she returned to the Manor fairly well pleased. It was Loftus, for whom she had really sacrificed so much, who dealt her the final blow. This idle scapegrace had got into fresh debt and difficulty. Mrs. Bertram expostulated, she wrung her hands, she could almost have torn her hair. The young man stood before her half-abashed, half sulky. "Can you help me, mother? That's the main point," was his reiterated cry. Mrs. Bertram managed at last to convince him that she had not a farthing of ready money left. "In that case," he replied, "nothing but ruin awaits me." His mother wept when he told her this. She was shaken with all she had undergone in London, poor woman, and this man, who could cringe to her for a large dole out of her pittance, was the beloved of her heart.