"Where is Gar?" she asked.
"Gar was frightened at the man, and the tobacco-smoke made him sick, and he cried; and then he lay down on the floor, and went to sleep."
She felt sick. She drew her two boys into the parlour—dark there, except for the lamp in the road, which shone in. Pressing them in her arms, completely subdued by the miseries of her situation, she leaned her forehead upon William's shoulder, and burst once more into a most distressing flood of tears.
They were alarmed. They cried with her. "Oh, mamma! what is it? Why don't you order the man to go away?"
"My boys, I must tell you; I cannot keep it from you," she sobbed. "That man is put here to remain, until I can pay the rent. If I cannot pay it, our things will be taken and sold."
William's pulses and heart alike beat, but he was silent, Frank spoke. "Whatever shall we do, mamma?"
"I do not know," she wailed. "Perhaps God will help us. There is no one else to do it."
Patience came in, for about the sixth time, to see whether Jane had returned, and how the mission had sped. They called her into the cold, dark room. Jane gave her the history of the whole day, and Patience listened in astonishment.
"I cannot but believe that Thomas Ashley must have been mis-informed," said she, presently. "But that you are strangers in the place, I should say you had an enemy who may have gone to him with a tale that thee can pay, but will not. Still, even in that case, it would be unlike Thomas Ashley. He is a kind and a good man; not a harsh one."
"Mr. Dare told me he was expressly acting for Mr. Ashley."