But Mr. O'Brien had gone on skirting the subject, preparing them.
"I have been anxious for months about those mine shares. They have gone down and down, and now they have ceased to pay any dividends at all."
He had said it before, had explained that it was because of these shares that they must let their home.
Denis said, surprised, "The Rêve d'or shares?"
"Why, yes! Oh, you mean I've told you that already? But I thought they were such a good investment—" he broke off, and walked quickly to the window.
"Your mother isn't getting her strength back," he said suddenly.
They realised at once that there were still things that mattered. He went on quickly: "You needn't be anxious. Oh, no! But Dr. O'Donovan—" he broke off, and started afresh. "You know that, as a young man, I didn't expect to come into this—" he waved his hand impatiently around. There was an air about him now of wanting to get it over as quickly as possible; an irritated impatience made his words hurried.
"Well, you know, I studied medicine. I was a qualified doctor. It's all settled. I've got the post. There's no other way. Dr. O'Donovan says your mother must have a sea voyage. We can't afford it. I've got the post of surgeon on the Albany—starts at end of October for Australia—sailing ship."
They knew it all at last. Thinking it over now, Nell was struck with the difference there had been from his usual manner of speaking. She knew now what it had cost him to tell them. Then she had been too absorbed in her horror to think much of anything beyond the news he had told them.
After that, in the weeks that followed, there had been the cruel carrying into effect of the news. There had been much wearisome talk. Amongst it Nell remembered one thing that had been clear and definite at once. That was Denis's determination to do some sort of work. Mr. O'Brien wished him to study shorthand and type-writing, with a literary future in view. But Denis refused, beyond agreeing to study them in his spare time. For the rest he intended to do work that would have remuneration attached to it. Already he was fired with hope and ambition to turn the strangers from their home. Mr. O'Brien secured him a position as a clerk in a London bank, the manager of which had been a schoolfellow of his. Nell cried miserably because she wasn't a boy. Denis shook her, and painted, in glowing colours, the great academy picture that in a few years' time was to win her fame and fortune. But two or three years seemed such an interminable time that, mostly, her mind refused to grasp the thought.