The finger of duty was plain.

And with that adorable Miss Ruth, with or without a fortune--Alas! he trusted she had a fortune, for, as he came to think thereon, he remembered that he was desperately poor.

As far as he could make out from his agent, a grim, silent man, who had taken an evident dislike to him from the first, there was no money anywhere.

The rents would come in at Michaelmas; but the interest of heavy mortgages had to be paid, the estate had to be kept up.

There was succession duty; there were debts--long outstanding debts--which came pouring in now, which Waters spread before him with an iron smile, and which poor Dare contemplated with his head on one side, and solemn, arched eyebrows.