den china aunts! And, you know, Mark,
there's the River Thames. I would as soon plunge into the one as take
a train to the others."

"What is to prevent you from staying here?" he asked. "If you are
tired of London, try Paris again. You can surely go where you please."

"How few are lucky enough for that!"

"I thought," said Mark, "you had the world before you."

"More likely the workhouse," answered Bridget.

"You don't mean to say you're--you're hard up!" he cried, returning to
his seat on the sofa.

"Oh, I have plenty of money at the bank," she explained. "Mark, I
detest talking about it, but I really should love to tell you. During
mother's lifetime, you must remember how comfortably we used to live.
I always had everything I wanted--for that matter, so I have until this
moment. Naturally," Bridget continued, "I believed that the house and
everything were kept up by father's books."

"Wasn't that the case?" asked Mark.

"As a matter of fact," said Bridget, "they brought in very little money
indeed."

"Surely his name was very well known!"

"Yes, and he had heaps of friends who thought ever so much of him.
There are hundreds of press cuttings praising him up to the skies.
During the last few months of his life he scarcely read anything else.
The doctors gave his illness a long name--I dare say you would
understand if I could remember; but what killed him was a broken heart."

"How was that?" asked Mark.

"What we really lived upon," answered Bridget, "was my mother's income.
That died with her--all but a small sum, which she left to me. We were
compelled to leave Crowborough, and father seemed to droop like some
transplanted flower. We wandered from place to place, and I suppose he
was extravagant. I seem to take after him. Neither of us could bother
about economy and that sort of thing. He felt the change dreadfully,
and the tragedy was that he couldn't pull himself together in his
necessity. Instead of writing better, he wrote much worse. He could
satisfy neither himself nor any one else. His sales fell off; he saw
he wasn't doing good work. I believe that broke his heart."

"Didn't he leave you anything?" asked Mark.

"Nothing whatever. He knew he was dying and told me to communicate
with his old friend Mr. Frankfort, a solicitor. But there was nothing
due from publishers--not a penny; so it was fortunate I had the money
that had been left by my mother, wasn't it?"

"Do you min