"I am sure not, child."
"Papa, I am here this morning to beg you to use your interest with Sir Thomas Ticknell. Oliver knows nothing about my coming. He said last night, when we were talking, that if you could be induced to throw your influence into the scale, the bank might listen to you. So I thought that I would come to you in the morning and ask."
"The bank won't listen to me, or to any one else, in this matter, Bessy. It's illegal to pay the tontine money over while two of you are living, and the Ticknells are too strict to risk it. I shouldn't do it myself in their places."
"What Oliver says is this, papa. The money must, in the course of events, come to either him or me, whichever of us survives the other. We have therefore an equal interest in it, and possess at present an equal chance of succeeding to it. No one else in the wide world, but our two selves, has the smallest claim to it, or ever can have. We are the only survivors of the ten; the rest are all dead. Why, then, should the trustees not stretch a point and let us have the money while it can be of use to us conjointly? Oliver says they ought to do it."
"I know he does," remarked Mr. North.
"Has Oliver spoken to you, papa?"
"No," said Mr. North. "I heard about it from Dick. Dick happened to be at the bank yesterday, and Thomas Ticknell mentioned to him that Dr. Rane had been urging this request upon them. Dick said Sir Thomas seemed quite horrified at the proposition; they had told Dr. Rane, in answer, that if they could consent to such a thing it would be no better than a fraud."
"So they did," replied Bessy. "When Oliver was relating it to me after he came home, he could not help laughing--in spite of his vexation. The money is virtually ours, so where would the fraud lie?"
"To be virtually yours is one thing, Bessy; to be legally yours is another. You young women can't be expected to understand business problems, my dear; but your husband understands them. Of course it would be a great boon to get the two thousand pounds whilst you are both together; but it would not be legal for the bankers to do it, and they are right in refusing it."
"Then--do you think there is no chance for us, papa?"