and so unfitted to the words.

"I suppose," he stammered, "I suppose that you do not care for me? Of
course, I have no right to expect that you would."

"As I have said that I cannot say 'yes,' Colonel Quaritch, do you not
think that I had better leave that question unanswered?" she replied
in the same soft notes which seemed to draw the heart out of him.

"I do not understand," he went on. "Why?"

"Why?" she broke in with a bitter little laugh, "shall I tell you why?
Because I am /in pawn!/ Look," she went on, pointing to the stately
towers and the broad lands beyond. "You see this place. /I/ am
security for it, I /myself/ in my own person. Had it not been for me
it would have been sold over our heads after having descended in our
family for all these centuries, put upon the market and sold for what
it would fetch, and my old father would have been turned out to die,
for it would have killed him. So you see I did what unfortunate women
have often been driven to do, I sold myself body and soul; and I got a
good price too--thirty thousand pounds!" and suddenly she burst into a
flood of tears, and began to sob as though her heart would break.

For a moment Harold Quaritch looked on bewildered, not in the least
understanding what Ida meant, and then he followed the impulse common
to mankind in similar circumstances and took her in his arms. She did
not resent the movement, indeed she scarcely seemed to notice it,
though to tell the truth, for a moment or two, which to the Colonel
seemed the happiest of his life, her head rested on his shoulder.

Almost instantly, however, she raised it, freed herself from his
embrace and ceased weeping.

"As I have told you so much," she said, "I suppose that I had better
tell you everything. I know that whatever the temptation," and she
laid great stress upon the words, "under any conceivable circumstances
--indeed, even if you believed that you were serving me in so doing--I
can rely upon you never to reveal to anybody, and above all to my
father, what I now tell you," and she paused and looked up at him with
eyes in which the tears still swam.

"Of course, you can rely on me," he said.

"Very well. I am sure that I shall never have to reproach you with the
words. I will tell you. I have virtually promised to marry Mr. Edward
Cossey, should he at any time be in a position to claim fulfilment of
the promise, on condition of his taking up the mortgages on Honham,
which he has don