Colonel Denis' effects were sold off in the usual manner; his furniture, boat, and guns, were disposed of, his servants dismissed, and his papers examined. And what discoveries were not made in that battered old despatch-box! Not of money owing, or startling unpaid bills, but of large sums due to him; borrowed and forgotten by impecunious acquaintances—one thousand rupees here, three thousand rupees there, merely acknowledged by careless, long-forgotten I. O. U.'s. Then there were receipts for money paid,—drained away yearly by his father's and wife's creditors—his very pension was mortgaged. How little he appeared to have spent upon himself. All his life long he had been toiling hard for other people, who gaily squandered in a week, what he had accumulated in a year; a thankless task! a leaden burden!
Apparently he had begun to save of late, presumably for Helen; but, including the auction, all that could be placed to his daughter's credit in the bank was only four hundred odd pounds!
"Say fifteen pounds a year," said Colonel Home, looking blankly at Mr. Creery.
"I know he intended to insure his life, he told me so last week."
"Ah! if he only had. What is to become of the poor girl?" continued Colonel Home; "fifteen pounds a year won't even keep her in clothes, let alone in food and house-room. I believe he had very few relations in England, and see how some of his friends out here have fleeced him!"
"They ought to be made pay up," returned Mr. Creery. "I'll see to that," he added with stern, determined face.
"How can they pay up? The fellows who signed those," touching some I. O. U.'s, "are dead. Here's another, for whom Denis backed a bill; he went off to Australia years ago. I wonder Tom Denis had not a worse opinion of his fellow-creatures."
"In many ways, Tom was a fool; his heart was too soft, his eyes were always blind to his own interests: some people soon found that out."
"Well! what is to become of his daughter? That is what puzzles me," said his listener anxiously. "She is a good girl, and uncommonly pretty!"
"Yes; her face is her fortune, and I hope it will stand to her," rejoined Mr. Creery, dubiously. "But, to set herself off, she should go into fine society and wear fine clothes, and she has no means to start her in company where she would meet a likely match. As they say in my country, 'Ye canna whistle without an upper lip.'"