there's much use crying about anything. If it could
have been cried straight, it would have been all right from the start,"
said the girl, going back to her own affair; and if Lapham had not been
so deeply engrossed in his, he might have seen how little she cared for
all that money could do or undo. He did not observe her enough to see
how variable her moods were in those days, and how often she sank from
some wild gaiety into abject melancholy; how at times she was fiercely
defiant of nothing at all, and at others inexplicably humble and
patient. But no doubt none of these signs had passed unnoticed by his
wife, to whom Lapham said one day, when he came home, "Persis, what's
the reason Pen don't marry Corey?"

"You know as well as I do, Silas," said Mrs. Lapham, with an inquiring
look at him for what lay behind his words.

"Well, I think it's all tomfoolery, the way she's going on. There
ain't any rhyme nor reason to it." He stopped, and his wife waited.
"If she said the word, I could have some help from them." He hung his
head, and would not meet his wife's eye.

"I guess you're in a pretty bad way, Si," she said pityingly, "or you
wouldn't have come to that."

"I'm in a hole," said Lapham, "and I don't know where to turn. You
won't let me do anything about those mills----"

"Yes, I'll let you," said his wife sadly.

He gave a miserable cry. "You know I can't do anything, if you do. O
my Lord!"

She had not seen him so low as that before. She did not know what to
say. She was frightened, and could only ask, "Has it come to the
worst?"

"The new house has got to go," he answered evasively.

She did not say anything. She knew that the work on the house had been
stopped since the beginning of the year. Lapham had told the architect
that he preferred to leave it unfinished till the spring, as there was
no prospect of their being able to get into it that winter; and the
architect had agreed with him that it would not hurt it to stand. Her
heart was heavy for him, though she could not say so. They sat
together at the table, where she had come to be with him at his belated
meal. She saw that he did not eat, and she waited for him to speak
again, without urging him to take anything. They were past that.

"And I've sent orders to shut down at the Works," he added.

"Shut down at the Works!" she echoed with dismay. She could not take
it in. The fire at the Works had never been out before since it