“When everything is settled,” he explained, with an effort, “we shall have nothing at all.  It will be worse than that, since I sha’n’t be able to pay all I owe.”

“Yes; that is worse,” she assented, quietly.

Another silence was broken by his saying, hoarsely: 

“You’ll get married—­”

“That will have to be reconsidered.”

“Do you mean—­on your part?”

“I suppose I mean—­on everybody’s part?”

“Do you think he would want to—­you must excuse the crudity of the question—­do you think he would want to back out?”

“I don’t know that I could answer that.  It isn’t quite to the point.  Backing out, as you call it, wouldn’t be the process—­whatever happened.”

He interrupted her nervously.  “If this should fall through, dear, you must write to your Aunt Vic.  You must eat humble pie.  You were too toplofty with her as it was.  She’ll take you.”

“Take me, papa?  Why shouldn’t I stay with you?  I’d much rather.”

He tried to explain.  It was clearly the moment at which to do it.

“I don’t think you understand, dear, how entirely everything has gone to smash.  I shall probably—­I may say, certainly—­I shall have to—­to go—­”

“I do understand that.  But it often happens—­especially in this country—­that things go to smash, and then the people begin again.  There was Lulu Sentner’s father.  They lost everything they had—­and she and her sisters did dressmaking.  But he borrowed money, and started in from the beginning, and now they’re very well off once more.  It’s the kind of thing one hears of constantly—­in this country.”

“You couldn’t hear of it in my case, dear, because—­well, because I’ve done all that.  I’ve begun again, and begun again.  I’ve used up all my credit—­all my chances.  The things I counted on didn’t come off.  You know that that happens sometimes, don’t you?—­without any one being to blame at all?”

She nodded.  “I think I’ve heard so.”

“And now,” he went on, eager that she should begin to see what he was leading her up to—­“and now I couldn’t borrow a thousand dollars in all Boston, unless it was from some one who gave it to me as a charity.  I’ve borrowed from every one—­every penny for which I could offer security—­and I owe—­I owe hundreds of thousands.  Do you see now how bad it is?”

“I do see how bad it is, papa.  I admit it’s worse than I thought.  But all the same I know that when people have high reputations other people trust them and help them through.  Banks do it, don’t they?  Isn’t that partly what they’re for?  It was Pierpoint & Hargous who helped Lulu Sentner’s father.  They stood behind him.  She told me so.  I’m positive that with your name they’d do as much for you.  You take a gloomy outlook because you’re ill.  But there’s no one in Boston—­no one in New England—­more esteemed or trusted.  When one can say, ’All is lost save honor,’ then, relatively speaking, there’s very little lost at all.”