, looking out into the yard. Now he
turned to look at her.

"What isn't true, Sarah?" he asked.

"That you've lost a lot of money in--in that--that business you went
into. It isn't true, is it, Sears? Oh, I hope it isn't! They say--why,
some of 'em say you've lost all the money you had put by. An awful sight
of money, they say. Sears, tell me it isn't true--please."

He regarded her in silence for a moment. Then he shook his head.

"Part of it isn't true, Sarah," he answered, with a slight smile. "I
haven't lost a big lot of money."

"Oh, I'm _so_ glad. Now I can tell 'em a few things, I guess."

"I wouldn't tell 'em too much, because the other part _is_ true. I have
lost about all I had put by."

"Oh, Sears!"

"Um--hm. And served me right, of course. You can't make a silk ear out
of a sow's purse, as old Cap'n Sam Doane used to love to say. You can't,
no matter how good a purse--or--ear--it is. I was a pretty good sea
cap'n if I do say it, but that wasn't any reason why I should have
figured I was a good enough business man to back as slippery an eel as
Jim Carpenter in the ship chandlery game ashore."

"But--you----" Mrs. Macomber hesitated to utter the disgraceful word,
"you didn't fail up, did you, Sears?" she faltered. "You know that's
what they say you did."

"Well, they say wrong. Carpenter failed, I didn't. I paid dollar for
dollar. That's why I've got next to no dollars now."

"But you--you've got _some_, Sears. You must have," hopefully, "because
you've been paying me board. So you must have _some_ left."

The triumph in her face was pathetic. He hated to disturb her faith.

"Yes," he said dryly, "I have some left. Maybe seven hundred dollars or
some such matter. If I had my legs left it would be enough, or more than
enough. I wouldn't ask odds of anybody if I was the way I was before
that train went off the track. I'd lost every shot I had in the locker,
but I'm not very old yet--some years to leeward of forty--there was more
money to be had where that came from and I meant to have it. And
then--well, then this happened to me."

"I know. And to think that you was comin' down here on purpose to see me
when it did happen. Seems almost as if I was to blame, somehow."

"Nonsense! Nobody was to blame but the engineer that wrecked the train
and the three hundred pound woman that fell on my legs. And the engineer
was killed, poor fellow, and the woman was--well, she carried her own
punishment with