he latter, who, poor
woman, was doing her utmost to bring up her courage to the point
necessary to the carrying out of the appeal /ad misericordiam/, which
she had decided to make as soon as the game was over. However, chance
put an opportunity in her way, for Edward Cossey, who had a curious
weakness for flowers, asked her if she would show him her
chrysanthemums, of which she was very proud. She consented readily
enough. They crossed the lawn, and passing through some shrubbery
reached the greenhouse, which was placed at the end of the Castle
itself. Here for some minutes they looked at the flowers, just now
bursting into bloom. Ida, who felt exceedingly nervous, was all the
while wondering how on earth she could broach so delicate a subject,
when fortunately Mr. Cossey himself gave her the necessary opening.

"I can't imagine, Miss de la Molle," he said, "what I have done to
offend your father--he almost cut me just now."

"Are you sure that he saw you, Mr. Cossey; he is very absent-minded
sometimes?"

"Oh yes, he saw me, but when I offered to shake hands with him he only
bowed in rather a crushing way and passed on."

Ida broke off a Scarlet Turk from its stem, and nervously began to
pick the bloom to pieces.

"The fact is, Mr. Cossey--the fact is, my father, and indeed I also,
are in great trouble just now, about money matters you know, and my
father is very apt to be prejudiced,--in short, I rather believe that
he thinks you may have something to do with his difficulties--but
perhaps you know all about it."

"I know something, Miss de la Molle," said he gravely, "and I hope and
trust you do not believe that I have anything to do with the action
which Cossey and Son have thought fit to take."

"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