ab to the London, Chatham
and Dover railway station, I do not for a moment think that she
would have packed up her bundle. She would have received intense
gratification from the offer,--so much so that she would have been
almost consoled for her husband's ruin; but she would have scolded
her lover, and would have explained to him the great iniquity of
which he was guilty. It was clear to him that at this present time he
could not make any special terms with her as to Clara Van Siever. At
such a moment as this he could hardly ask her to keep out of the way,
in order that he might have his opportunity. But when he suggested
that probably it might be better, in the present emergency, to give
up the idea of any further sitting in her room, and proposed to send
for his canvas, colour-box, and easel, she told him that, as far as
she was concerned, he was welcome to have that one other sitting for
which they had all bargained. "You had better come to-morrow, as we
had agreed," she said; "and unless I shall have been turned out into
the street by the creditors, you may have the room as you did before.
And you must remember, Conway, that though Mrs. Van Siever says that
Musselboro is to have Clara, it doesn't follow that Clara should give
way." When we consider everything, we must acknowledge that this was,
at any rate, good-natured. Then there was a tender parting, with many
tears, and Conway Dalrymple escaped from the house.

He did not for a moment doubt the truth of the story which Mrs
Broughton had told, as far, at least, as it referred to the ruin of
Dobbs Broughton. He had heard something of this before, and for some
weeks had expected that a crash was coming. Broughton's rise had been
very sudden, and Dalrymple had never regarded his friend as firmly
placed in the commercial world. Dobbs was one of those men who seem
born to surprise the world by a spurt of prosperity, and might,
perhaps, have a second spurt, or even a third, could he have kept
himself from drinking in the morning. But Dalrymple, though he was
hardly astonished by the story, as it regarded Broughton, was put out
by that part of it which had reference to Musselboro. He had known
that Musselboro had been introduced to Broughton by Mrs. Van Siever,
but, nevertheless, he had regarded the man as being no more than
Broughton's clerk. And now he was told that Musselboro was to marry
Clara Van Siever, and have all Mrs. Van Siever's money. He resolved,
at last,