n. Meshach perceived the danger of his position, and retired.

'Nay, nay!' Hannah protested. 'That's very wrong of John. Eh, this
speculation!'

'But, really, uncle,' Leonora said as convincingly as she could. 'It's
capital that John wants.'

She saw that all was lost.

'Capital!' Meshach sarcastically flouted the word, and he turned with a
dubious benevolence to Leonora. 'No, my lass, it isn't,' he said,
pausing. 'John'll get out of this mess as he's gotten out of many
another. Trust him. He's your husband, and he's in the family, and I'm
saying nothing against him. But trust him for that.'

'No,' Hannah inserted, 'John's always been a good nephew.... If it
wasn't----'

Meshach quelled her and proceeded: 'I'll none consent to John raising
money on your property. It's not right, lass. Happen this'll be a lesson
to him, if anything will be.'

'Five hundred would do,' Leonora murmured with mad foolishness.

Of what use to chronicle the dreadful shame which she endured before she
could leave the house, she who for a quarter of an hour had been a queen
there, and who left as the pitied wife of a wastrel nephew?

'You're not _short_, my dear?' Hannah asked at the end in an anxious
voice.

'Not he!' Uncle Meshach testily ejaculated, fastening the button of that
droll necktie of his.

'Oh dear no!' said Leonora, with such dignity as she could assume.

As she walked home she wondered what 'speculation' really was. She could
not have defined the word. She possessed but a vague idea of its
meaning. She had long apprehended, ignorantly and indifferently and
uneasily, that John was in the habit of tampering with dangerous things
called stocks and shares. But never before had the vital import of these
secret transactions been revealed to her. The dramatic swiftness of the
revelation stunned her, and yet it seemed after all that she only knew
now what she had always known.

When she reached home John was already in the hall, taking off his
overcoat, though the hour of one had not struck. Was this a coincidence,
or had he been unable to control his desire to learn what she had done?

In silence she smiled plaintively at him, shaking her head.

'What do you mean?' he asked harshly.

'I couldn't arrange it,' she said. 'Uncle Meshach refused.'

John gave a scarcely perceptible start. 'Oh! That!' he exclaimed.
'That's all right. I've fixed it up.'

'This morning?'

'Eh? Yes, this morning.'

During dinner he showe