exhausted. Farthing.

She read it wonderingly. "What does it mean; who is Farthing?"

"My Toronto broker--or at least he was," said Manson heavily.

"But I don't understand, dear."

"Ho, I didn't suppose you would; it means I lose my hundred thousand,
that's all."

"Had you a hundred thousand?" she whispered.

"Very, very nearly, and now I haven't anything,--that is, I didn't make a
cent."

She drew a long breath. "Peter, tell me just how we stand."

"Exactly where we did the day a man named Clark came to St. Marys," he
said dully, "with not a cent more."

There followed a little silence, and the tears began to roll down her
cheeks. He put his arm round her, and perceived, with astonishment, that
they were tears of happiness.

"Peter dear," she said very softly, "you don't know how glad I am that
it's all over."

"You mean the hundred thousand!" He stared at her blankly.

"Yes, just that. I know you won't understand, but things have never been
the same for me since you began to try and make it. You were
different--everything was different."

"But if I had made it you would have been glad."

"Perhaps--I don't know. I'm rather afraid of a hundred thousand
dollars," she began to smile a little through her tears, "but now I feel
ten years younger. Is that what 'stop loss' means--you don't actually
lose anything?"

"Nothing more than I have sent him in this case."

"And you didn't send him my money--not that it's much."

"Good God, Mary, no!"

"Peter," she began gently, "you weren't happy all the time--I could tell
that. You were trying to do something you weren't made for--I could see
that too. You are very strong--but it isn't that kind of strength.
People like us can't do that kind of thing--we feel too much. We haven't
got much, but it represents a lot and our lives are in it, and this
hundred thousand dollars wouldn't have been that kind of money, would it?"

"No, I suppose not." Manson felt the tumult in his breast subsiding.

"I know you did it for me and the children, but we don't want you to
speculate for us. We just want you--as we used to have you. We have
enough of everything else, and we'll all be very happy again. Oh, my
dear, big, faithful husband." She slipped into his arms and put her head
on his great shoulder.

And Manson, holding her to him, felt new springs of emotion unseal
themselves within him. The past few years had not been happy ones. As
his profits g