“Mr. Quest,” she said, with some trepidation, as he at last triumphantly handed her the beef, “I hope you will forgive me for asking you a plain question, and that, if you can, you will favour me with a plain answer.  I know my father’s affairs are very much involved, and that he is now anxious to borrow some more money; but I do not know quite how matters stand, and I want to learn the exact truth.”

“I am very glad to hear you speak so, Miss de la Molle,” answered the lawyer, “because I was trying to make up my mind to broach the subject, which is a painful one to me.  Frankly, then—­forgive me for saying it, your father is absolutely ruined.  The interest on the mortgages is a year in arrear, his largest farm has just been thrown upon his hands, and, to complete the tale, the mortgagees are going to call in their money or foreclose.”

At this statement, which was almost brutal in its brief comprehensiveness, Ida turned pale as death, as well she might, and dropped her fork with a clatter upon the plate.

“I did not realise that things were quite so bad,” she murmured.  “Then I suppose that the place will be taken from us, and we shall—­shall have to go away.”

“Yes, certainly, unless money can be found to take up the mortgages, of which I see no chance.  The place will be sold for what it will fetch, and that now-a-days will be no great sum.”

“When will that be?” she asked.

“In about six or nine months’ time.”

Ida’s lips trembled, and the sight of the food upon her plate became nauseous to her.  A vision arose before her mind’s eye of herself and her old father departing hand in hand from the Castle gates, behind and about which gleamed the hard wild lights of a March sunset, to seek a place to hide themselves.  The vivid horror of the phantasy almost overcame her.

“Is there no way of escape?” she asked hoarsely.  “To lose this place would kill my father.  He loves it better than anything in the world; his whole life is wrapped up in it.”

“I can quite understand that, Miss de la Molle; it is a most charming old place, especially to anybody interested in the past.  But unfortunately mortgagees are no respecters of feelings.  To them land is so much property and nothing more.”

“I know all that,” she said impatiently, “you do not answer my question;” and she leaned towards him, resting her hand upon the table.  “Is there no way out of it?”

Mr. Quest drank a little claret before he answered.  “Yes,” he said, “I think that there is, if only you will take it.”

“What way?” she asked eagerly.