ghastly nuisance the serious, innocent Fynes must have been to
her. How exasperated she must have been by that couple falling into
Brighton as completely unforeseen as a bolt from the blue--if not so
prompt. How she must have hated them!

But I conclude she would have carried out whatever plan she might have
formed. I can imagine de Barral accustomed for years to defer to her
wishes and, either through arrogance, or shyness, or simply because of
his unimaginative stupidity, remaining outside the social pale, knowing
no one but some card-playing cronies; I can picture him to myself
terrified at the prospect of having the care of a marriageable girl
thrust on his hands, forcing on him a complete change of habits and the
necessity of another kind of existence which he would not even have known
how to begin. It is evident to me that Mrs. What's her name would have
had her atrocious way with very little trouble even if the excellent
Fynes had been able to do something. She would simply have bullied de
Barral in a lofty style. There's nothing more subservient than an
arrogant man when his arrogance has once been broken in some particular
instance.

However there was no time and no necessity for any one to do anything.
The situation itself vanished in the financial crash as a building
vanishes in an earthquake--here one moment and gone the next with only an
ill-omened, slight, preliminary rumble. Well, to say 'in a moment' is an
exaggeration perhaps; 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 si