“Papa, it was our little all. It was a provision for your old age,” she murmured. “While that was safe I could bear the anxiety of the present.”
“I know, dear—yes, I know. I did not mean what I said when I called you avaricious. You have been the tenderest, the most self-denying of daughters to me. Heaven bless you for it! And don’t—don’t mistrust me, Florry, my darling! I meant no wrong to you in taking that money. I saw such a splendid opportunity of doubling it—for you, love—for you. And it is as you say, our all—our last venture. Surely Heaven will not let this tiny bark be wrecked, like the rest!”
Startled by the passionate anguish in his broken accents, Florence looked in his face. For the first time it wore a frightened aspect: for the first time his own sanguine faith in his success was shaken.
“I should go mad,” he muttered, “if Mason failed me and I was obliged to know that I had ruined my child past redemption. Florence,” he added, almost wildly, “don’t torture me with doubts and reproaches. Mason has assured me that the money is safe, and he would not deceive me; he dare not, I tell you—he dare not!”
“Hush, papa!” said Florence gently. “We’ll never mention it again. I’m sure you meant well, so we’ll wait and hope.”
His looks cleared.
“Yes, yes, love, we’ll hope. Now you are my kind, sensible child once more. We’ll hope, Florry; and when the hope becomes a certainty, and we go back to Northumberland, my darling shall have a tiara of pearls for her pretty brown hair, from her fond father. How well such an ornament would become you! Which would you like best—pearls alone, or mixed with sapphires? Not talk about it now, do you say? Very well, love; but it shall not be forgotten.”
Florence waited on her father that night with a kind of protecting tenderness in her voice and manner. This last rash act of his had set the seal on their ruin, and she must nerve herself to that darksome future which was inevitably coming upon them. He had no one but her to care for him. Then she must be brave and energetic, and prepare herself for the worst. Taking up the occupation of her new acquaintances over the way seemed the most feasible method of helping herself when the crash came and Mr. Heriton was forced to acknowledge the necessity. And Florence waited impatiently till the week came round and she could call upon them.
Susan Denham was alone when she entered, but her cordial greeting had scarcely been spoken when her cousin joined them. She was a tall, handsome woman, two or three years Florence’s senior, with commanding deportment and an indescribable fascination about her, which she used to laughingly declare was inherited from her Parisian mother.
Susan was thrown in the shade beside her handsome, imperious cousin; yet there was something so sweet, or, rather, so good and true in her every look and gesture, that to know her was to love her. You felt instinctively that she was to be depended upon; and that, although no scriptural quotations ever passed her lips, her religion was the guiding principle of her blameless life.