"These American friendships cost a great deal," she wrote, "for they stop at the most expensive hotels, and I must have a parlor and bedroom in order to keep up appearances, so I really have nothing to spare just now; but I send you a five-pound note which I borrowed for you from Mr. Jack Trevellian, who came day before yesterday and told me of his visit to Stoneleigh. If I am any judge, he is more than half in love with you, and when I said I was going to write and regretted that I could not send you any money, as I was sure you must need it after so much company, he insisted upon loaning me twenty pounds, and when I refused so large a sum he made me take ten, which I will divide with you. It was very generous in him, and when I said I should pay him as soon as possible, he begged me never to speak of it, as he would gladly give ten times that sum to one as faithful and kind to her father as you are. Jack is a good fellow, and there is only one life between him and a, title, I hear. Try for him, Bessie; I know you can get him. Write him a little note and tell him how kind it was in him to loan me the money. That will be a beginning, but you need not say how much of it I sent you; as he designed it all for you, he might not like it if he knew I kept half. How is your father? The last time I was home I really thought he was threatened with softening of the brain, he seemed so sleepy and stupid and forgetful. Give him my love, and believe me always your affectionate mother,
"DAISY McPHERSON.
"P.S.—I hear Lord Hardy has returned from Egypt and is expected here. I am glad, for a sight of him will do me good. He is the best friend I ever had, and the first, except, of course, your father."
Such, in part, was Daisy's letter, which Bessie read with an aching heart and cheeks which burned with shame. She wanted money sadly, for her boots were giving out at the sides, and the butcher's bill was unpaid, and her father needed wine and jellies to tempt his sickly appetite and keep up his failing strength. But she would have gone barefoot and denied herself food for a week sooner than touch the five-pound note her mother had wrung from Jack Trevellian, her recent guest.
"It was begged; it is a charity; it burns my hand," she said, as she held the note between her thumb and finger. "I will not have it in the house," and the next moment it was blackening on the fire where the indignant girl had thrown it, together with her mother's letter, which her father must never see.
Oh, how for an instant Bessie loathed herself as she thought of her mother and saw in fancy the whole sickening performance at Nice, the daily jesting and badinage with those people around her—second-class Americans, she was sure, or they would not take up her mother; but worst of all was the interview with Jack Trevellian, whose feelings had been wrought upon until he gave her ten pounds, because of her poverty!
"Oh, it is too horrible; but I will pay it back some time," she said, and kneeling by the firelight with her hot, tear-stained face buried in her hands, Bessie prayed earnestly that in some way see might be enabled to pay this debt to Jack Trevellian.
In her excitement she did not then regret that she had burned the note, though she knew that it was a rash act, and that it necessitated extra self-denials which would tell heavily upon her. With strong black linen thread and a bit of leather she patched her boots; she dressed and undressed in the cold, for she would allow no fire in her room; she never tasted meat, or tarts, or sweets, or delicacies of any kind, but contented herself with the simplest fare, and piled her father's plate, begging him to eat, and watching him with feverish anxiety as her mother's dreadful words rang in her ears—softening of the brain! Was that terrible disease stealing upon him? Would the time come when the kind eyes which now always brightened when they rested on her would have in them no sign of recognition, and the lips which spoke her name so lovingly utter only unmeaning words? It was terrible to contemplate, and Bessie felt she would rather see him dead than an imbecile.
"But what should I do with father gone?" she said, and her thoughts turned to Neil, who would surely take her then, even if he took her into poverty.
And so in a measure Bessie was comforted, and watched her father with untiring vigilance, and felt that he was slipping from her and that in all the world there was for her no ray of joy except in Neil's love, which she never doubted, and without which her heart would have broken, it was so full of care and pain. And it was just when her heart was saddest because her father had that morning called her Daisy, and when she corrected him had said, "Yes, but I can't think of your name; words go from me strangely at times; everything is confused," that Neil's letter came, bringing her fresh cause for anxiety, and seeming with its brevity and strangeness, to put him farther from her than he would be in Cannes, whither he was going.