ied, in the same manner. "I can't
remember, can't remember! It's ruin, utter ruin! My head--I can't
think, can't remember! Lost, lost!"

In her terror, she put her young arm round him as a mother encircles
her child in the delirium of fever.

"Try and tell me, father!" she implored him. "Try and be calm, dearest!
Tell me, and I will help you. What is lost?"

He tried to struggle from her arms, tried to push her from him.

"You know!" he mumbled. "You've watched me--you know the truth!
Everything is lost! I am ruined! The mortgage! Herondale will pass
away! I am a poor man, a very poor man! Have pity on me, have pity on
me!"

He slipped, by their weight, from her arms and fell into the chair. She
sank on to her knees, her arms still round him, and stroked and
caressed his withered hand that twitched and shook; and to her horror
his stony eyes grew more vacant, his jaw dropped, and he sank still
lower in the chair. "Jessie! Jason!" she called, and they rushed in.
For a space they stood aghast and unhelpful from fright, then Jason
tried to lift his master from the heap into which he had collapsed. The
old man's eyes closed, he straggled for breath, and when he had gained
it, he looked from one to the other with a smile, a senile smile, which
added to Ida's grief and terror.

"It's all right!" he whispered, huskily, pantingly. "It's all right;
they don't know. They don't guess!" Then his manner changed to one of
intense alarm and dismay. "Lost! Lost!" he gasped. "I'm ruined, rained!
Herondale has gone, gone--all is gone! My poor child--Ida!"

"Father!" broke from Ida's white lips. "Father, I am here. Look at me,
speak to me. I am here--everything is not lost. I am here, and all is
well."

His lips twisted into a smile, a smile of cunning, almost of glee; then
he groaned, and the cry rose again:

"I can't remember--all is lost! Ruined! My poor child! Have pity on my
child!"

As she clung to him, supporting him as she clung, she felt a shudder
run through him, and he fell a lifeless heap upon her shoulder.

The minutes--were they minutes or years?--passed, and were broken into
fragments by a cry from Jessie.

"Miss Ida! Miss Ida! He's--the master's dead!'"

Ida raised her father's head from her shoulder and looked into his
face, and knew that the girl had spoken the truth.

He was dead. She had lost both father and lover in one day!

CHAPTER XXVI.

Ida sat in the library on the morning of the fu