; but that everything was over in just
twenty-four hours is an exact statement. Fyne was able to tell me all
about it; and the phrase that would depict the nature of the change best
is: an instant and complete destitution. I don't understand these
matters very well, but from Fyne's narrative it seemed as if the
creditors or the depositors, or the competent authorities, had got hold
in the twinkling of an eye of everything de Barral possessed in the
world, down to his watch and chain, the money in his trousers' pocket,
his spare suits of clothes, and I suppose the cameo pin out of his black
satin cravat. Everything! I believe he gave up the very wedding ring
of his late wife. The gloomy Priory with its damp park and a couple of
farms had been made over to Mrs de Barral; but when she died (without
making a will) it reverted to him, I imagine. They got that of course;
but it was a mere crumb in a Sahara of starvation, a drop in the thirsty
ocean. I dare say that not a single soul in the world got the comfort
of as much as a recovered threepenny bit out of the estate. Then, less
than crumbs, less than drops, there were to be grabbed, the lease of the
big Brighton house, the furniture therein, the carriage and pair, the
girl's riding horse, her costly trinkets; down to the heavily
gold-mounted collar of her pedigree Saint Bernard. The dog too went:
the most noble-looking item in the beggarly assets.

What however went first of all or rather vanished was nothing in the
nature of an asset. It was that plotting governess with the trick of a
"perfect lady" manner (severely conventional) and the soul of a
remorseless brigand. When a woman takes to any sort of unlawful
man-trade, there's nothing to beat her in the way of thoroughness. It's
true that you will find people who'll tell you that this terrific
virulence in breaking through all established things, is altogether the
fault of men. Such people will ask you with a clever air why the
servile wars were always the most fierce; desperate and atrocious of all
wars. And you may make such answer as you can--even the eminently
feminine one, if you choose, so typical of the women's literal mind. "I
don't see what this has to do with it!" How many arguments have been
knocked over (I won't say knocked down) by these few words! For if we
men try to put the spaciousness of all experiences into our reasoning
and would fain put the Infinite itself into our love, it isn't, a