Poor Mr Davenant! This letter, with the enclosed documents (which he had fondly hoped were cheques for the L.5000)--documents utterly useless of course to him to aid him in his present difficulties--this letter drove him to despair. Mrs Davenant and Selina were likewise confounded: Lucy, by her father's express request, was not informed of their defeated plans.
But matters now grew worse with Mr Davenant, and bankruptcy was looming in the distance. His affairs were now more involved than ever; and even the L.5000, had he obtained it, would not now have availed to restore his sinking credit. In this dilemma he proposed raising money on the security of the railway shares, but here Selina showed the result of her education in _worldly wisdom_.
'Nonsense, papa,' was her dutiful remark in reply to this suggestion; 'it will do you no good, you know, and only render me and Lucy poorer. I am of age; and as the shares are mine, you can't sell them, you know,' she added in some confusion; for even her selfishness could not quite supply her with a proper amount of _nonchalance_ in thus speaking to her father.
'I can sell them with your permission, of course?' said Mr Davenant, hardly comprehending the full extent of her meaning.
'Yes, I know. But you see, papa, it's bad enough for me as it is: I shall not have the fortune I was always taught to expect; and really, as it wont do you any real good, I think I should be very unwise to let you sell them.'
'You refuse your permission then?' exclaimed the father. Selina bowed her head, and left the room. Mr Davenant clasped his hands in anguish, not at the failure of this last hope, but at the agonizing ingratitude of his favourite child, and wept; and while he yet groaned aloud in his misery, Lucy entered the room. It is always a sad thing to behold a man weep; but to Lucy, who now, for the first time in her life, beheld her father under the influence of feeling, it was a great and painful shock. But it is one of the first instincts of woman to console, and in a moment she was kneeling by his side, her arms wound about his neck, her tears mingling with his. All his harshness to her--the little affection he had ever shown her--the many times her love had been repulsed--all was forgotten; she only remembered that he was her father, and in trouble, and either of these ties was sufficient to insure her affectionate sympathy. Mr Davenant felt deeply the ingratitude of Selina; but yet more intensely did the tenderness of his youngest child cut him to the soul. It was a lesson which he never forgot; and from that day he was a better, if not, according to his former creed, a _wiser_ man. He told Lucy the whole story of the railway shares, and his impending ruin. Lucy intreated him to use _her_ portion of the shares immediately; and though his recent grief had humbled him, and rendered him less selfish--and he was unwilling to take advantage of her generosity--yet as she assured him that she would never accept the money which was originally intended for his use, he at length consented. But the tide of ruin was not to be so easily stemmed, and the stricken man and his bewildered wife now patiently listened to their only remaining daughter; for Selina had gone with some friends, and with her 'shares' in her pocket, to Normandy, there to join Mr Forde, and be married to him before he became aware that his bride's father was a ruined man. Lucy advised her father to go to Mr Atkinson, tell him the _whole truth_, and intreat his assistance. 'He is so kind-hearted, dear papa, that he _will_ do what you want: he will lend you sufficient money to relieve you from these embarrassments, and then you will do very well.'