“No, no,” she said hastily.  “I never thought anything of the sort—­but I know that you have influence—­and, well, to be plain, Mr. Cossey, I implore of you to use it.  Perhaps you will understand that this is very humiliating for me to be obliged to ask this, though you can never guess how humiliating.  Believe me, Mr. Cossey, I would never ask it for myself, but it is for my father—­he loves this place better than his life; it would be much better he should die than that he should be obliged to leave it; and if this money is called in, that is what must happen, because the place will be sold over us.  I believe he would go mad, I do indeed,” and she stopped speaking and stood before him, the fragment of the flower in her hand, her breast heaving with emotion.

“What do you suggest should be done, Miss de la Molle?” said Edward Cossey gently.

“I suggest that—­that—­if you will be so kind, you should persuade Cossey and Son to forego their intention of calling in the money.”

“It is quite impossible,” he answered.  “My father ordered the step himself, and he is a hard man.  It is impossible to turn him if he thinks he will lose money by turning.  You see he is a banker, and has been handling money all his life, till it has become a sort of god to him.  Really I do believe that he would rather beggar every friend he has than lose five thousand pounds.”

“Then there is no more to be said.  The place must go, that’s all,” replied Ida, turning away her head and affecting to busy herself in removing some dried leaves from a chrysanthemum plant.  Edward, watching her however, saw her shoulders shake and a big tear fall like a raindrop on the pavement, and the sight, strongly attracted as he was and had for some time been towards the young lady, was altogether too much for him.  In an instant, moved by an overwhelming impulse, and something not unlike a gust of passion, he came to one of those determinations which so often change the whole course and tenour of men’s lives.

“Miss de la Molle,” he said rapidly, “there may be a way found out of it.”

She looked up enquiringly, and there were the tear stains on her face.

“Somebody might take up the mortgages and pay off Cossey and Son.”

“Can you find anyone who will?” she asked eagerly.

“No, not as an investment.  I understand that thirty thousand pounds are required, and I tell you frankly that as times are I do not for one moment believe the place to be worth that amount.  It is all very well for your father to talk about land recovering itself, but at present, at any rate, nobody can see the faintest chance of anything of the sort.  The probabilities are, on the contrary, that as the American competition increases, land will gradually sink to something like a prairie value.”

“Then how can money be got if nobody will advance it?”

“I did not say that nobody will advance it; I said that nobody would advance it as an investment—­a friend might advance it.”