'Look here, Cheyne—if I take up your paper and pay Slagg, could you not force her—I say, force——'
'Hush—she might fall ill and die, as her mother died, of a decline,' groaned Sir Ranald.
'Oh! not a bit, not a bit,' said Cadbury; 'but change of air will do her good. Let us get her out of this place, anyway.'
'The fact is, she has a fancy for that infantry fellow, Bevil Goring, at Aldershot,' said Sir Ranald, who carefully omitted to state that Alison had admitted her engagement.
'The devil—but I don't need to be told that,' exclaimed Cadbury, angrily; 'yet we must eradicate that fancy, and sharply too.'
'But how?'
'Take her over to the Continent. Let us get her on board my yacht, with you as her protector, and all will come right in the end, and I'll leave you ashore somewhere when you least suspect it,' was Cadbury's concluding thought.
'But these bills that Slagg holds——'
'Are not in his possession now.'
'In whose, then?' asked Sir Ranald, with fresh alarm.