“Is there no hope—no means of rallying—of struggling through the difficulty?” continued Lady Selina.
Mr. Mark looked very grave, and shook his head.
“I fear that this has been no thing of yesterday. The firm must have been for some time in a tottering state, though appearances were so carefully kept up that the crash took every one by surprise.”
“The strangest thing of all,” said Lady Selina, “is, that Mr. Effingham himself should, as you tell me, have disappeared—not have ventured to face his creditors!”
“It is strange,” observed the lawyer almost sternly; for he was an honest, straightforward man, who had not learned to regard all things as fair in the way of business. “It is strange!” he repeated more slowly: “when the affairs of the firm are wound up, we shall be better able to account for such a step on his part. It was this disappearance which touched Mrs. Effingham so nearly; she bore the news of the failure with a degree of firmness which, I own, surprised me; but when I informed her that her husband had fled, she was struck down at once; I was seriously alarmed for the consequences.”
“Oh! she is subject to hysterical fits; they do not alarm those who know her,” said the lady, whose malice would glance forth even at a time like this. “Of course Mrs. Effingham must feel the change in her fortunes; none shrink from poverty more than those who have once experienced its trials.”
“Mrs. Effingham is secured from anything approaching to poverty,” said the lawyer; “ample provision has been made for her comfort. Sixty thousand pounds were settled upon her not long after her marriage.”
“Sixty thousand pounds! and settled upon Mrs. Effingham!” exclaimed Lady Selina; “and what becomes of the rest of the family?”
“As you are aware, madam, the dowry of the late Lady Arabella Effingham, amounting to ten thousand pounds, was, by her will, divided share and share alike between her two surviving daughters. That is safe—invested in Government securities; for the rest, everything—house, furniture, estate—will, doubtless, be seized and disposed of for the benefit of the creditors.”
“But the sixty thousand pounds that you mentioned?”