stion is, what will your father do
for us?" Emily could not but remember her husband's intense desire to
obtain money from her father not yet three months since, as though
all the world depended on his getting it,--and his subsequent
elation, as though all his sorrows were over for ever, because the
money had been promised. And now,--almost immediately,--he was again
in the same position. She endeavoured to judge him kindly, but a
feeling of insecurity in reference to his affairs struck her at once
and made her heart cold. Everything had been achieved, then, by a
gift of L3000,--surely a small sum to effect such a result with
a man living as her husband lived. And now the whole L3000 was
gone;--surely a large sum to have vanished in so short a time!
Something of the uncertainty of business she could understand, but a
business must be perilously uncertain if subject to such vicissitudes
as these! But as ideas of this nature crowded themselves into her
mind she told herself again and again that she had taken him for
better and for worse. If the worse were already coming she would
still be true to her promise. "You had better tell papa everything,"
she said.

"Had it not better come from you?"

"No, Ferdinand. Of course I will do as you bid me. I will do anything
that I can do. But you had better tell him. His nature is such that
he will respect you more if it come from yourself. And then it is so
necessary that he should know all;--all." She put whatever emphasis
she knew how to use upon this word.

"You could tell him--all, as well as I."

"You would not bring yourself to tell it to me, nor could I
understand it. He will understand everything, and if he thinks that
you have told him everything, he will at any rate respect you."

He sat silent for a while meditating, feeling always and most acutely
that he had been ill-used,--never thinking for an instant that he had
ill-used others. "L3000, you know, was no fortune for your father to
give you!" She had no answer to make, but she groaned in spirit as
she heard the accusation. "Don't you feel that yourself?"

"I know nothing about money, Ferdinand. If you had told me to speak
to him about it before we were married I would have done so."

"He ought to have spoken to me. It is marvellous how close-fisted
an old man can be. He can't take it with him." Then he sat for
half-an-hour in moody silence, during which she was busy with
her needle. After that he jumped up, wi