_III.--The Downfall_


When Tom had turned sixteen, and Maggie, three years younger, was at
boarding school, came the downfall of the Tullivers. A long and
expensive law-suit concerning rights of water, brought by Mr. Tulliver,
ended in defeat. Wakem was his opponent's lawyer.

Maggie broke the news to Tom. Not only would mill and lands and
everything be lost, and nothing left, but their father had fallen off
his horse, and knew nobody, and seemed to have lost his senses.

"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"
said Maggie, on their way home from King's Lorton. "It was the letter
with that news in it that made father ill, they think."

"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my father,"
said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite conclusion.
"I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never speak to
Philip again!"

For more than two months Mr. Tulliver lay ill in his room, oblivious to
all that was taking place around him. From time to time recognition came
to him of his wife and family, but there was no remembrance of recent
events.

The mill and land of the Tullivers were sold to Wakem the lawyer, and
the bulk of their household goods were disposed of by public auction;