ey's subtlety was at fault. It is
doubtful, indeed, if there was anything definite or directed in the mute
misery of Northwick's soul. It was not a sharp anguish, such as a finer
soul's might have been, but it was a real misery, of a measure and a
quality that he had not felt before. Now he realized how much he must
have made his children suffer. Perhaps it wrung him the more keenly
because it seemed to be an expression of the divine displeasure, which
he flattered himself he had appeased, and was a fatal consequence of his
guilt. It was a terrible suggestion of the possibility that, after all,
Providence might not have been a party to the understanding between
them, and that his good-will toward those he had wronged had gone for
nothing. He had blamed himself for not having tried to retrieve himself
and make their losses good. It was no small part of his misery now to
perceive that anything he might have done would have gone for nothing in
this one-sided understanding. He fetched a long, unconscious sigh.

"Why, it's all over, now, Mr. Northwick," said Pinney, with a certain
amusement at the simple-heartedness of this sigh, whose cause he did not
misinterpret. "The question is now about your getting back to them."

"Getting back? You know I can't go back," said Northwick, with bitter
despair, and an openness that he had not shown before.

Far beneath and within the senses that apprehend the obvious things,
Pinney felt the unhappy man beginning to cling to him. He returned,
joyously, "I don't know about that. Now, see here, Mr. Northwick, you
believe that I'm here as your friend, don't you? That I want to deal in
good faith with you?" Northwick hesitated, and Pinney pursued, "Your
daughter's letter ought to be a guaranty of that!"

"Yes," Northwick admitted, after another hesitation.

"Well, then, what I'm going to say is in your interest, and you've got
to believe that I have some authority for saying it. I can't tell you
just how much, for I don't know as I know myself exactly. But _I_ think
you can get back if you work it right. Of course, you can't get back for
nothing. It's going to cost you something. It's going to cost you all
you've brought with you,"--Pinney watched Northwick's impassive face for
the next change that should pass upon it; he caught it, and added--"and
more. But I happen to know that the balance will be forthcoming when
it's needed. I can't say _how_ I know it, for I don't exactly _know_ how