A whole week passed and it did not come and he was at length forced by the actual necessities of life to borrow twenty francs from a friend named Bolton. Toward the middle of the second week he got another ten from an acquaintance named Sidney, but still the anxiously looked for communication did not put in its appearance. Matters were assuming a decidedly ominous aspect now—the frame-maker’s suit having been decided against him by default—so he wrote a rather peevish letter to the Secretary of the Exhibition which, after some further delay, elicited a reply. In it he was told that the gentleman who had wanted his picture had gone away for a short cruise on his yacht and had neglected as yet to make known his ultimate intentions in regard to it.
This note rendered little Barlow well-nigh desperate. What was he to do? He remembered a kind friend, a Dr. Galt, who had offered to loan him a little money once before (and whom he knew had a warm heart for all the world), so he went over to his office on the rue St. Honore to ask him if he could help him in his emergency, but Fortune was once again against him and he learned with a sinking heart that the doctor had gone to Edinburg to attend a medical congress then being held there and would not be back for at least two weeks.
Then he returned to his studio, much discouraged and cast down, and told his brave but sad little wife about this last and crowning disappointment.
“It’s no use,” said little Barlow despairingly, “every thing is against us and we are now certain of being sold out. The danger is immediate and our furniture may be seized at any moment. If I had only a little more time I think I should be able to get the money somewhere, but the hundred and forty-seven francs—and the twenty-five extra ones for costs—might just as well be so many thousands, for I’m as powerless to raise them as though they were. All the fellows who are likely to have any money to spare are out of town and I’ve borrowed all I can from Bolton and Sidney.”
His wife knit her brow and reflected a moment; then she said slowly but bravely, “I think I have found a way of paying the bill. It’s an unpleasant way, but it’s the only one of which I know. We have pawned practically all our silver and jewelry but this, and it’s right that it should go now;” saying which, she resolutely drew off her engagement ring—daintily set with small diamonds and pearls—and held it out toward her husband. “I hoped, dear, when you put it on my finger to have always kept it there, but it’s best under the present circumstances that it should leave it.”
Little Barlow refused to take it, with tears in his eyes at the sacrilege, but she smiled at him cheerily and continued gently. “It is off now and the damage is done, so don’t be gloomy, sweetheart, but take it like a good boy. We won’t have to leave it at the Mont de Piete permanently, for you are sure of getting some more money one of these days, and then we can redeem it, and I will have another association with it and will value it all the more on that account.”
So little Barlow was at length prevailed upon to go with it to the Succursale of the rue de Rennes, and borrowed the utmost which that establishment would lend on it, which was only sixty francs.
“This partially solves the difficulty,” he said gloomily, on his return, “but if we cannot raise a hundred and twelve francs more for the rest of the bill and costs, we might just as well have nothing at all, for the real good it will do us.”
“There is that Mrs. Harvey at the Hotel Continental,” suggested his wife furtively; “she wrote to you last spring and asked you the price of the little Salon picture which you had already sold. You called on her at the time and she seemed affable and well-meaning, so why don’t you try her now?”