“I must, father, in this.  I’d rather die twenty deaths than marry that man.  There’s nothing I wouldn’t rather do.”

“Isn’t there?  You’d rather see your father in gaol, I suppose, if it came to that?”

“See you in gaol!” cried the girl aghast.  “For heaven’s sake, what do you mean, father?  What fear is there of your being sent to prison, because I won’t marry Stephen Whitelaw?  I’m not a baby,” she added, with a hysterical laugh; “you can’t frighten me like that.”

“No; you’re a very wise young woman, I daresay; but you don’t know everything.  You’ve seen me downhearted and out of sorts for this last half-year; but I don’t suppose you’ve troubled yourself much about it, except to worry me with silly questions sometimes, when I’ve not been in the humour to be talked to.  Things have been going wrong with me ever since hay-harvest, and I haven’t sent Sir David sixpence yet for last year’s crops.  I’ve put him off with one excuse after another from month to month.  He’s a careless master enough at most times, and never over-sharp with my accounts.  But the time has come when I can’t put him off any longer.  He wants money badly, he says; and I’m afraid he begins to suspect something.  Any way, he talks of coming here in a week or so to look into things for himself.  If he does that, I’m ruined.”

“But the money, father—­the money for the crops—­how has it gone?  You had it, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” the bailiff answered with a groan; “I’ve had it, worse luck.”

“And how has it gone?”

“What’s that to you?  What’s the good of my muddling my brains with figures to-night?  It’s gone, I tell you.  You know I’m fond of seeing a race, and never miss anything in that way that comes-off within a day’s drive of this place.  I used to be pretty lucky once upon a time, when I backed a horse or bet against one.  But this year things have gone dead against me; and my bad luck made me savage somehow, so that I went deeper than I’ve been before, thinking to get back what I’d lost.”

“O, father, father! how could you, and with another man’s money?”

“Don’t give me any of your preaching,” the bailiff answered gloomily; “I can get enough of that at Malsham Chapel if I want it.  It’s in your power to pull me through this business if you choose.”

“How can I do that, father?”

“A couple of hundred pounds will set me square.  I don’t say there hasn’t been more taken, first and last; but that would do it.  Stephen Whitelaw would lend me the money—­give it me, indeed, for it comes to that—­the day he gets your consent to be his wife.”

“And you’d sell me to him for two hundred pounds, father?” the girl asked bitterly.

“I don’t want to go to gaol.”

“And if you don’t get the money from Stephen, what will happen?”

“I can’t tell you that to a nicety.  Penal servitude for life, most likely.  They’d call mine a bad case, I daresay.”