split. "Let me think! Let me think!" she said piteously, but was incapable
of thinking.

"Would any of the people who were here at the dance--the Challises, the
Hollingsbys, the Buttifers, the Frosts, do it? Which of them shall we
ask?"

"I don't think one of them would do it. They would not care."

"But they're often here--to dinner, and so on."

"Don't ask them."

"Who then, mama?" Deleah questioned. She had made less noise than the
others, and there was about her an air of purpose, lacking in the rest,
although her childish face looked stricken.

"There is no one I should like you to ask a favour of."

"But we must ask some one."

"Let it be some one we do not know, then."

"Could we ask Sir Francis Forcus? He is very rich."

"I will go somewhere--I will ask--some one," Mrs. Day said; but, trying to
stand, she fell back in her chair, and her frightened children saw that
she had fainted.

They laid her on the sofa, and over her prostrate body renewed the subject