"Sit down, dearest," she said tenderly. "It is very good of you to come and see me so late. But there is something the matter, Mary. I have not known and loved you all these years without being able to read that transparent mind of yours. What is it dear? You know that I will do anything in the wide world to save you from unhappiness." "Dearest of foster mothers, I know it," Mary whispered. She blinked away the rare tears that would rise to her eyes. "It is selfish of me to come and worry you at this time of night, but there is no help for it. We are in great distress." "Does that mean your father as well as yourself, or rather that you are worrying about him? What has he been doing now to cause you all this anxiety? Something to do with those speculations over which I have helped him more than once in the past." "Have you?" Mary asked with a startled blush. "He never told me. He wrote to you----" "More than once, my dear. As heir presumptive to the estate, I suppose he thought he had a right to do so. But I am afraid that I can't help him again--at least, not just at present. But then I don't suppose it is so very serious." "It is disgrace," Mary said in a low voice. "It means the intrusion of strangers, men sent down to take what is called possession till the debt is paid. It is a matter of £5,000, and it must be obtained at once--before mid-day tomorrow. Perhaps I had better tell you all about it, but it would break my heart to see this disgrace fall on Dashwood. Dearest, tell me that you will find me the money or the means to get it!" Lady Dashwood made no reply for a moment. A still more ashen pallor crept over her white face. She placed her hand to her heart as if to still some poignant pain there, her rings shimmered and trembled in the lamplight. "Tell me everything," she said huskily. "My punishment is coming, my sin is finding me out at last." "Your sin?" Mary cried. "If ever there was a good woman in the world, you are one. I hate to hear you speak like that, my more than mother. Surely you must know how good and pure your life has always been. And you talk like this! If there is any mystery here, any secret that lies like a shadow over our house----" "Was ever a great family without its trouble?" Lady Dashwood asked. "You must not take my foolish words quite so seriously, child. Perhaps by brooding over them, one is apt to magnify troubles. So your father has discovered this will and the deed by which my unhappy boy cut himself off from his inheritance. Strange that the papers should be found just now." "Why?" Mary asked. "Why just now? Did you know of their existence?" But Lady Dashwood made no reply. She seemed to be lost in a sea of troubled thoughts. Mary did not repeat the question. After all, it mattered very little either way. Lady Dashwood came to herself with a start.