What brought her there? What had she come to tell them? Alas! of their unhappy downfall. How the Dares had contrived to go on so long, without the crash coming, they alone knew. They had promised to pay here, they had promised to pay there; and people, tradespeople especially, did not much like to begin compulsory measures with old Anthony Dare, who had so long held sway in Helstonleigh. His professional business had almost left him—perhaps because there was no efficient head to carry it on. Cyril was just what mademoiselle had called Herbert, a vagabond; and Cyril was an irretrievable one. No good to the business was he—not half as much good as he was to the public-houses. Mr. Dare, with white hair, bent form, and dim eyes, would go creeping to his office most days; but his memory was leaving him, and it was evident to all that he was relapsing into his second childhood. Latterly they had lived entirely by privately disposing of their portable effects—as Honey Fair used to do when it fell out of work. They owed money everywhere; rent, taxes, servants' wages, large debts, small debts—it was universal. And now the landlord had put in his claim after the manner of landlords, and it had brought on the climax. They were literally without resource; they knew not where to turn; they had not a penny, or the worth of it, in the wide world. Mrs. Dare, in the alarm occasioned by the unwelcome visitor—for the landlord's man had made good his entrance that morning—came flying off to Mr. Ashley, some extravagant hope floating in her mind that help might be obtained from him.
"Here's trouble! Here's trouble!" she exclaimed by way of salutation, wringing her hands frantically.
They rose in consternation, believing she must have gone wild. William handed her a chair.
"There, don't come round me," she cried, as she flung herself into it. "Go on with your breakfast. I have concealed our troubles until I am heart-sick, and now they can be concealed no longer, and I have come for help to you. Don't press anything upon me, Mrs. William Halliburton; to attempt to eat would choke me!"
She sat there and entered on her grievances. How they had long been without money, had lived by credit, and by pledging things out of their house; how they owed more than she could tell; how a "horrible man" had come into their house that morning, as an emissary of the landlord.
"What are we to do?" she wailed. "Will you help us? Mr. Ashley, will you?—your wife is my husband's cousin, you know. Mr. Halliburton, will you help us? Don't you know that I have a right to claim kindred with you? Your father and I were first cousins, and lived for some time under the same roof."
William remembered the former years when she had not been so ready to own the relationship. He remembered the day when Mr. Dare had put a seizure into their house, and his mother had gone, craving grace of him. Mr. Ashley remembered it, and his eye met William's. How marvellously had the change been brought round! the right come to light!
"What is it that you wish me to do?" inquired Mr. Ashley. "I do not understand."
"Not understand!" she sharply echoed, in her grief. "I want the landlord paid out. You have ample means at command, Mr. Ashley, and might do this much for us."
A modest request, certainly! The rent due was for three years: considerably more than two hundred pounds. Mr. Ashley replied to it quietly.