"I saw it all quite plainly. I sat down quiet and stunned; while Jasper raved and swore and paced up and down the room, I sat still. Yes we were, beggars, nothing could save the house which our father had made with such pride and care.
"After a time I left Jasper and returned to my wife's room. On the way I entered the nursery and paid my pretty little Charlotte a visit. She climbed on my knee and kissed me, and all the time I kept saying to myself, 'The child is a beggar, I can give her no comforts; we are absolutely in want.' It was the beginning of the winter then, and the weather was bitterly cold. The doctor met me on the threshold of my wife's room; he said to me, 'As soon as ever she is better, you must either take or send her out of England. She may recover abroad; but to winter in this climate, in her present state, would certainly kill her.' How bitter I felt; for was I not a beggar? How could I take my wife away? I sat down again in the darkened room and thought over the past. Hitherto the wealth, which was so easily won, seemed of comparatively small importance. It was easy with a full purse to wish, then to obtain. I had often wondered at Constance's love for all the pretty things with which I delighted to surround her, her almost childish pleasure in the riches which had come to her. She always said to me at such times:
"'But I have known such poverty; I hate poverty, and I love, I love the pretty things of life.'
"This very night, as I sat by her bedside, she opened her lovely eyes and looked at me and said:
"'John, I have had such a dream so vivid, so, so terrible. I thought we were poor again—poorer than I ever was even with my father; so poor, John, that I was hungry, and you could give me nothing to eat. I begged you to give me food. There was a loaf in a shop window, such a nice crisp loaf; and I was starving. When you said you had no money, I begged of you to steal that loaf. You would not, you would not, and at last I lay down to die. Oh! John, say it was a dream.'
"'Of course it was only a dream, my darling!' I answered, and I kissed her and soothed her, though all the time my heart felt like lead.
"That evening Jasper sent for me again. His manner now was changed. The wildness and despair had left it. He was his old, cool, collected self. He was in the sort of mood when he always had an ascendency over me—the sort of mood when he showed that wonderful business faculty for which I could not but admire him.
"'Sit down, John,' he said, 'I have a great deal to say to you. There is a plan in my head. If you will agree to act with me in it, we may yet be saved.'
"Thinking of my Constance lying so ill upstairs, my heart leaped up at these words.
"'What is your plan?' I said. 'I can stay with you for some time. I can listen as long as you like.'