ke another alternative; I
will suggest--what some are already predicting--that the project will
not prove a success."

"Who says that?" cried Hankes, hastily, and in his haste forgetting his
habitual caution of manner.

"Many have said it. Some of those whose opinions I am accustomed
to place trust in, have told myself that the speculation is too
vast,--disproportioned to the country, undertaken on a scale which
nothing short of imperial resources could warrant--"

"But surely you do not credit such forebodings?" broke he in.

"It is of little consequence how far _I_ credit them. I am as nothing
in the event. I only would ask, What if all were to fail?--what if ruin
were to fall upon the whole undertaking, what is to become of all those
who have invested their entire fortunes in the scheme? The great and
affluent have many ventures,--they trust not their wealth to one
argosy; but how will it be with those who have embarked their all in one
vessel?"

Mr. Hankes paused, as if to reflect over his reply, and she continued:
"It is a question I have already dared to address to Mr. Dunn himself. I
wrote to him twice on the subject. The first time I asked what guarantee
could be given to small shareholders,--those, for instance, who had
involved their whole wealth in the enterprise. He gave me no answer.
To my second application came the dry rejoinder that I had possibly
forgotten in whose service I was retained; that I drew my resources from
the Earl of Glengariff, and not from the peasantry, whose advocate I had
constituted myself."

"Well?" cried Hankes, curious to hear what turn the correspondence took.

"Well," said she, smiling gently, "I wrote again. I said it was true I
had forgotten the fact of which he reminded me, but I pleaded in excuse
that neither the Earl nor her Ladyship had refreshed my memory on the
circumstance by any replies to eight, or, I believe, nine letters I sent
them. I mentioned, too, that though I could endure the slight of this
neglect for myself, I could not put up with it for the sake of those
whose interest I watched over. Hear me out," said she, perceiving that
he was about to interrupt. "It had become known in Glengariff that all
the little fortune I was possessed of--the few hundred pounds Mr. Dunn
had rescued for me out of the wreck of our property--was invested in
this scheme. Mr. Dunn counselled this employment of the money, and I
consented to it. Now, this trustfulness on my part