l, with clenched hands
and a face convulsed with emotion. His eyes flashed, the veins stood
out upon his forehead.

"I believe that they mean to suck my brains,--to get all they can out of
me,--experience, introductions, connections, to suck me dry as they
would an orange, and then throw me on one side! I believe that the
salary was a bait to bribe me to give up my independence, and that it
did not matter to them that it was unusually large, since at the very
moment of offering it they had determined that my lease of office should
be of precious short duration. They cannot, for shame's sake, for their
own reputation's sake, dismiss me already, but in a hundred ways they
are bringing pressure to bear; in a hundred ways which you could not
understand, they are making it impossible for me to go on,--forcing me
into resignation--"

"Oh, hush, hush! Don't get excited. You frighten me when you are so
fierce. I am sure you are mistaken. You are worn out after all these
years of anxiety, and imagine what is not true. I am sure they do not
want to get rid of you; and if they did, what does it matter, since you
say yourself they dare not dismiss you? Come, be a good boy, and be
happy with me, and forget all about this horrid old business. All men
have worries, but they should try to forget them when they come home! I
give you full notice that I shall forbid business to be mentioned in our
house when we get one."

The glance which accompanied these words was meant to be irresistibly
coaxing; but, so far from being sobered yet, Ned seemed goaded into
fresh irritation.

"Worries! Worries! You call it by a contemptible little name like
that, when I am face to face with ruin,--when our whole future is
trembling in the balance? Don't you understand that there are things
that a man may not do, and that orders may be put upon him which he
cannot obey and preserve his self-respect? He may be forced to resign
even when he would gladly work his fingers to the bone, if by any fair
means he could keep his post?"

"Ah-ah!" cried Lilias, with a deep, indrawn breath, as if now, at last,
she had come to the real pivot on which the question hung. "Ah, yes,
Ned, I understand that if you once get the idea in that romantic head of
yours that you are being coerced to do what is not according to your
lights, there is an end of all peace until you are undeceived! We have
known you so long, remember, and heard all about your colleg