such constant
worry. He grew to look years older, his shoulders acquired a stoop,
and his memory began to fail him, especially on matters connected with
the mortgages and farm accounts. Ida, too, became pale and ill; she
caught a heavy cold, which she could not throw off, and her face
acquired a permanently pained and yet listless look.

One day, it was on the 15th of December, things reached a climax. When
Ida came down to breakfast she found her father busy poring over some
more letters from the lawyers.

"What is it now, father?" she said.

"What is it now?" he answered irritably. "What, it's another claim for
two hundred, that's what it is. I keep telling them to write to my
lawyers, but they won't, at least they write to me too. There, I can't
make head or tail of it. Look here," and he showed her two sides of a
big sheet of paper covered with statements of accounts. "Anyhow, I
have not got two hundred, that's clear. I don't even know where we are
going to find the money to pay the three months' interest. I'm worn
out, Ida, I'm worn out! There is only one thing left for me to do, and
that is to die, and that's the long and short of it. I get so confused
with these figures. I'm an old man now, and all these troubles are too
much for me."

"You must not talk like that, father," she answered, not knowing what
to say, for affairs were indeed desperate.

"Yes, yes, it's all very well to talk so, but facts are stubborn. Our
family is ruined, and we must accept it."

"Cannot the money be got anyhow? Is there /nothing/ to be done?" she
said in despair.

"What is the good of asking me that? There is only one thing that can
save us, and you know what it is as well as I do. But you are your own
mistress. I have no right to put pressure on you. I don't wish to put
pressure on you. You must please yourself. Meanwhile I think we had
better leave this place at once, and go and live in a cottage
somewhere, if we can get enough to support us; if not we must starve,
I suppose. I cannot keep up appearances any longer."

Ida rose, and with a strange sad light of resolution shining in her
eyes, came to where her father was sitting, and putting her hands upon
his shoulders, looked him in the face.

"Father," she said, "do you wish me to marry that man?"

"Wish you to marry him? What do you mean?" he said, not without
irritation, and avoiding her gaze. "It is no affair of mine. I don't
like the man, if that's what you mean.