“I have done my best, Miss Pennycuick.  You bade me be good to her; I gave you my solemn promise—­and I can conscientiously say that I have kept my word.”  Well, so he had; according to his lights he had been an exemplary husband.  “But circumstances have been against me.  In the first place, I was in error somewhat, as you know, in regard to my wife’s expectations from her father.  I did not marry her for her money, as you also know, but appearances were such that I naturally concluded she would have a considerable income of her own.  I did not care for myself one way or the other, but I was glad to believe that there would be the means to continue to her the mode of life that she had been used to.  I acted upon this supposition, false, as it turned out, and anticipated, most imprudently, I confess, the little fortune that I imagined to be secure.  When we came here, where living is so much more expensive than in the country”—­with no Redford to draw upon—­“I surrounded my wife with the comforts that were her due, and which I fully believed she had every right to.”  He waved his hand over the still blooming Axminster carpet and the brocaded suite the family was not allowed to sit on.  “I spent—­we spent the little capital represented by your father’s wedding present—­I had an erroneous idea that it was to be an annual allowance pending the eventual division of the estate; and then—­well, then you know what happened.”

Deb nodded.

“Did you,” she inquired feelingly, “borrow of those professional money-lenders?”

She was prepared to be very sympathetic in that case; but Mr Goldsworthy repelled the suggestion with scorn.

“Certainly not.  I never borrowed money in my life.  I struggled and scraped and saved, as best I could; I endeavoured in vain to augment my small income by little speculations—­harmless little dabblings in mining shares; I—­but I won’t bore you with these disagreeables”—­ pulling himself up with an air of forced cheerfulness.

“But I want to know,” said Deb.  “You spoke of worries—­Mary’s worries —­worries now; are you still—­”

He spread his hands and wagged his head.

“I’d rather not talk about our troubles,” he sighed.  “I don’t want to dim the sunshine of your—­”

And suddenly his eye flashed and his brow contracted with annoyance.  Mary—­somewhat hesitatingly, to be sure—­walked in.

Robert had insisted that the pater was all wrong in his idea that it was proper for him alone to receive the visitor, and for the mistress of the house to linger inhospitably after it was known that she must know of the visitor’s arrival.  Robert had coerced his mother into doing the correct thing.  Politely he opened the drawing-room door for her—­ that, of course, was absolutely the correct thing—­and escorted her forward with the aplomb of a man of the world, nicely blended with the respectfulness appropriate to a nephew and a school-boy.