"Stake it and lose it," confirmed Oscar. "When the mania for play sets in on a man, he is not content to confine his ventures to trifles."
"But I do not understand," returned Alice. "How could he stake the Grange? It is in the Dalrymple family, and cannot go out of it?"
"He might stake its value. Mortgage it, that is, for his own life."
"And could we not remain in it?" she quickly asked.
"Scarcely. It might take every shilling of its incomings to pay off the interest. You could not remain here upon nothing."
"Would it be sacrificed; useless to us for so long as Robert lived?" questioned Selina, not quite comprehending.
Oscar nodded. "I am only saying that he might do it: I do not say he will. He might so hamper himself, so involve the estate, that he could never derive further benefit from it. Or his family either, so long as he lived."
"Does it return to us at Robert's death? I wish to goodness he would be more careful of himself," added Selina, in her quick way. "Sitting up till daylight, night after night, cannot be good for him."
"It—would return into the family," spoke Oscar, hesitatingly.
Alice Dalrymple looked up from a reverie. A contingency had occurred to her which she had never thought of before: so entirely had the Grange been theirs in their father's recent lifetime, and in the certainty of its descending to Robert afterwards. "Suppose anything were to happen to Robert," she said, "whose would the Grange be? Mamma's?"