seem to infer that we are prosperous now. Do
you know how much I owe half the stores in this city, Harry?"

"I don't want to!" said Leslie, with a gesture of impatience. "Your
tastes were always extravagant, and I mean the kind of poverty which is
always refused credit."

"My tastes!" and Millicent's tone was indignant. "I suppose I am fond
of money, or the things that it can buy, and you may remember you once
promised me plenty. But why can't you be honest and own that the
display we make is part of your programme? I have grown tired of this
scheming and endeavoring to thrust ourselves upon people who don't want
us, and if you will be content to stay at home and progress slowly,
Harry, I will gladly do my share to help you."

Millicent Leslie was ambitious, but the woman who endeavors to assist
an impecunious husband's schemes by becoming a social influence usually
suffers, even if successful, in the process, and Millicent had not been
particularly successful. She was also subject to morbid fits of
reflection, accompanied by the framing of good resolutions, which, for
the moment at least, she meant to keep. It is possible that night
might have marked a turning-point in her career had her husband
listened to her, but before she could continue, his thin lips curled as
he said:

"Isn't it a little too late for either of us to practice the somewhat
monotonous domestic virtues? You need not be afraid of hurting my
feelings, Millicent, by veiling your meaning. But, in the first place,
at the time you transferred your affections to me I had the money, and,
in the second, I must either carry out what you call my programme or go
down with a crash shortly. If luck favors me the prize I am striving
for is, however, worth winning, but things are going most confoundedly
badly just now. In fact, I shall be driven into a corner unless you
can help me."

Mrs. Leslie possessed no exalted code of honor, but, in her present
frame of mind, her husband's words excited fear and suspicion, and she
asked sharply, "What is it you want me to do?"

"I will try to explain. You know something of my business. I sent up
a clever rascal to--well, to pass as a workman seeking employment, and
so enable us to forestall some of Savine's mechanical improvements. He
took the money I gave him and started, but we have never seen him
since, and it is particularly desirable that I should know whether he
tried and failed or what has become