"Well, we're ruined. We must sell everything. We don't even know if that will be enough. Grandmother has had no luck. All her interests are in the North. She is most dreadfully unhappy about it."
So this was the reason. I am astounded, and stirred to the depths of my being. I hardly dare believe—I smile:
"Really! There really was nothing but that?"
"I got it into my head," she says. "I wanted to put you to the proof. You never answered me on that point."
Nothing but this scruple. It was she who thought she had lost value!
"All the same," she continues, sighing as if she had been pulled out of a fathomless abyss, "if Grandmother had not been determined—that there should be an explanation——"
I cannot prevent myself saying:
"I dreaded your grandmother."
"Why?"
"I was so much afraid she might put you off."