"I only think, remember, Leonora. God alone knows."
"Leave me," entreated the miserable woman. "I will try to bear it, but, oh! leave me to bear it alone."
Dolly crept down to the drawing-room, where Lord Darsham anxiously awaited her return.
"Have you told her?" he asked. "Has she decided on her future plans?"
"I have told her as much as I can tell her at present," was the reply. "When she has recovered a little from the shock, she will form her plans, no doubt. Meantime, my Lord, I think I could help you, and Leonora too, if you would tell me your plans with regard to your cousin and her family."
"Before I answer your question, will you answer one of mine? What have I done, Mrs. Mortomley, that your tone and manner have changed towards me so utterly? You are misjudging me in some way. You fancy because Leonora is poor, I shall not be so willing to help her as if she had been left well-dowered. Is it not so?"
"'Conscience makes cowards of us all,'" remarked Dolly, with a bitter little laugh. "It is you who have changed. Poverty and money; these two things are the touchstones of love, esteem, friendship. Have I not seen it? Do I not know it? I was wrong to expect a miracle; but I did hope for better things from you."
"And what have I done to forfeit your good opinion?" he asked. "Could a brother have taken more responsibility upon himself than I have done? I would have paid out that fellow downstairs, but you advised me not to part with money which might be useful to Leonora. Have not I told you I will see to her and the children? Is it not merely to save her annoyance I urge the necessity for her departure from this wretched house? Surely, you are hard to please?"
"I am not at all hard to please, and you know that," she answered. "When first you heard of Mr. Werner's reverses, you were goodness itself; you were as utterly unworldly and disinterested as—well, as my own husband is.
"But you had not then stood face to face with that ruin which overtakes a commercial man. A loss of income; the reduction of a household; having to live frugally, and dress plainly; these things never seem terrible to friends and acquaintances who are not called upon to practise such economy in their own persons. What has tried you is just what tries every one who is privileged to see the process by which men, unable to meet their engagements, are stripped of everything they possess.