ope yet for the day when I may speak
out once for all in his presence, and cast them back one by one in his
teeth.

Sir Percival was the first to break the silence again.

"Yes, yes, bully and bluster as much as you like," he said sulkily;
"the difficulty about the money is not the only difficulty. You would
be for taking strong measures with the women yourself--if you knew as
much as I do."

"We will come to that second difficulty all in good time," rejoined the
Count. "You may confuse yourself, Percival, as much as you please, but
you shall not confuse me. Let the question of the money be settled
first. Have I convinced your obstinacy? have I shown you that your
temper will not let you help yourself?--Or must I go back, and (as you
put it in your dear straightforward English) bully and bluster a little
more?"

"Pooh! It's easy enough to grumble at ME. Say what is to be done--that's
a little harder."

"Is it? Bah! This is what is to be done: You give up all direction in
the business from to-night--you leave it for the future in my hands
only. I am talking to a Practical British man--ha? Well, Practical,
will that do for you?"

"What do you propose if I leave it all to you?"

"Answer me first. Is it to be in my hands or not?"

"Say it is in your hands--what then?"

"A few questions, Percival, to begin with. I must wait a little yet,
to let circumstances guide me, and I must know, in every possible way,
what those circumstances are likely to be. There is no time to lose.
I have told you already that Miss Halcombe has written to the lawyer
to-day for the second time."

"How did you find it out? What did she say?"

"If I told you, Percival, we should only come back at the end to where
we are now. Enough that I have found it out--and the finding has
caused that trouble and anxiety which made me so inaccessible to you
all through to-day. Now, to refresh my memory about your affairs--it
is some time since I talked them over with you. The money has been
raised, in the absence of your wife's signature, by means of bills at
three months--raised at a cost that makes my poverty-stricken foreign
hair stand on end to think of it! When the bills are due, is there
really and truly no earthly way of paying them but by the help of your
wife?"

"None."

"What! You have no money at the bankers?"

"A few hundreds, when I want as many thousands."

"Have you no other security to borrow upon?"

"Not a shred.