ything?'

'Because we are friends.'

'No,' she said, 'no. You cannot really regard me as a friend. I have
been an impostor. I know that. I had no business to know a person like
you at all. Oh, if the next six months could be over! Poor papa,--poor
papa!' And then for the first time she burst into tears.

'I wish I knew what might comfort you,' he said.

'How can there be any comfort? There never can be comfort again! As
for comfort, when were we ever comfortable? It has been one trouble
after another,--one fear after another! And now we are friendless and
homeless. I suppose they will take everything that we have.'

'Your papa had a lawyer, I suppose?'

'I think he had ever so many,--but I do not know who they were. His
own clerk, who had lived with him for over twenty years, left him
yesterday. I suppose they will know something in Abchurch Lane; but
now that Herr Croll has gone I am not acquainted even with the name of
one of them. Mr Miles Grendall used to be with him.'

'I do not think that he could be of much service.'

'Nor Lord Alfred? Lord Alfred was always with him till very lately.'
Nidderdale shook his head. 'I suppose not. They only came because papa
had a big house.' The young lord could not but feel that he was
included in the same rebuke. 'Oh, what a life it has been! And now,--
now it's over.' As she said this it seemed that for the moment her
strength failed her, for she fell backwards on the corner of the sofa.
He tried to raise her, but she shook him away, burying her face in her
hands. He was standing close to her, still holding her arm, when he
heard a knock at the front door, which was immediately opened, as the
servants were hanging about in the hall. 'Who are they?' said Marie,
whose sharp ears caught the sound of various steps. Lord Nidderdale
went out on to the head of the stairs, and immediately heard the voice
of Dolly Longestaffe.

Dolly Longestaffe had on that morning put himself early into the care
of Mr Squercum, and it had happened that he with his lawyer had met
his father with Mr Bideawhile at the corner of the square. They were
all coming according to appointment to receive the money which Mr
Melmotte had promised to pay them at this very hour. Of course they
had none of them as yet heard of the way in which the Financier had
made his last grand payment, and as they walked together to the door
had been intent only in reference to their own money. Squercum, who
had heard a g