y loved.
This was a great deal, more indeed than he had dared to believe, but
then, as is usually the case in this imperfect world, where things but
too often seem to be carefully arranged at sixes and sevens, came the
other side of the shield. Of what use to him was it to have won this
sweet woman's love, of what use to have put this pure water of
happiness to his lips in the desert of his lonely life, only to see
the cup that held it shattered at a blow? To him the story of the
money loan--in consideration of which, as it were, Ida had put herself
in pawn, as the Egyptians used to put the mummies of their fathers in
pawn--was almost incredible. To a person of his simple and honourable
nature, it seemed a preposterous and unheard of thing that any man
calling himself a gentleman should find it possible to sink so low as
to take such advantage of a woman's dire necessity and honourable
desire to save her father from misery and her race from ruin, and to
extract from her a promise of marriage in consideration of value
received. Putting aside his overwhelming personal interest in the
matter, it made his blood boil to think that such a thing could be.
And yet it was, and what was more, he believed he knew Ida well enough
to be convinced that she would not shirk the bargain. If Edward Cossey
came forward to claim his bond it would be paid down to the last
farthing. It was a question of thirty thousand pounds; the happiness
of his life and of Ida's depended upon a sum of money. If the money
were forthcoming, Cossey could not claim his flesh and blood. But
where was it to come from? He himself was worth perhaps ten thousand
pounds, or with the commutation value of his pension, possibly twelve,
and he had not the means of raising a farthing more. He thought the
position over till he was tired of thinking, and then with a heavy
heart and yet with a strange glow of happiness shining through his
grief, like sunlight through a grey sky, at last he went to sleep and
dreamed that Ida had gone from him, and that he was once more utterly
alone in the world.

But if he had cause for trouble, how much more was it so with Ida?
Poor woman! under her somewhat cold and stately exterior lay a deep
and at times a passionate nature. For some weeks she had been growing
strangely attracted to Harold Quaritch, and now she knew that she
loved him, so that there was no one thing that she desired more in
this wide world than to become his wife. And