ially in a country like this."

"Oh, it is--it is. I own it; but--well, you know--"

She brusquely brought him back to the question of Mary's health.

"It is Mary that I want to hear about. Tell me--before she comes
in--what is the matter with her?"

He was willingly confidential.

"She has worries," said he--"worries that you, my dear young lady, in
YOUR position, know nothing of--would not understand if I were to tell
you."

"I have been in positions to understand most kinds of worries," said
Deb. "What are they? Money worries?"

"Well, I have a delicacy in--"

"Oh, you need not have! I know, of course, that you cannot have been
too well off, and I am here on purpose to do something for you, if you
will allow me.' There was no need to beat about the bush, she knew,
since Mary was out of hearing. 'Tell me exactly, if you don't mind--in
strict confidence, of course. No need to trouble her--and I shall not
say anything."

He told her, with fullness and fervour, when he had expressed his too
fulsome gratitude.

"I have done my best, Miss Pennycuick. You bade me be good to her; I
gave you my solemn promise--and I can conscientiously say that I have
kept my word." Well, so he had; according to his lights he had been an
exemplary husband. "But circumstances have been against me. In the
first place, I was in error somewhat, as you know, in regard to my
wife's expectations from her father. I did not marry her for her money,
as you also know, but appearances were such that I naturally concluded
she would have a considerable income of her own. I did not care for
myself one way or the other, but I was glad to believe that there would
be the means to continue to her the mode of life that she had been used
to. I acted upon this supposition, false, as it turned out, and
anticipated, most imprudently, I confess, the little fortune that I
imagined to be secure. When we came here, where living is so much more
expensive than in the country"--with no Redford to draw upon--"I
surrounded my wife with the comforts that were her due, and which I
fully believed she had every right to." He waved his hand over the
still blooming Axminster carpet and the brocaded suite the family was
not allowed to sit on. "I spent--we spent the little capital
represented by your father's wedding present--I had an erroneous idea
that it was to be an annual allowance pending the eventual division of
the estate; and then--well, then you know what happ