Again he paused.  The listener had wide, miserable eyes.

’Well, I told him at once that I would accept the proposal.  I have no right to refuse.  All I possess in the world, at this moment, is about sixty pounds.  If I sold all my books and furniture, they might bring another sixty or so.  What, then, is to become of me?  I must set to work at something, and here’s the first work that comes to hand.  But,’ his voice softened, ’this puts us face to face with a very grave question; doesn’t it?  Are we to relinquish your money, and be both of us penniless?  Or is there any possibility of saving it?’

‘How can we?  How could the secret be kept?’

Voice and countenance joined in utter dismay.

‘It doesn’t seem to me,’ said Tarrant slowly, ’a downright impossibility.  It might be managed, with the help of your friend Mary, and granting that you yourself have the courage.  But’—­he made a large gesture—­’of course I can’t exact any such thing of you.  It must seem practicable to you yourself.’

‘What are we to do if my money is lost?’

‘Don’t say we.’  He smiled generously, perhaps too generously.  ’A man must support his wife.  I shall arrange it somehow, of course, so that you have no anxiety.  But—­’

His voice dropped.

‘Lionel!’ She sprang up and approached him as he stood by the fireplace.  ’You won’t leave me, dear?  How can you think of going so far away—­for months—­and leaving me as I am now?  Oh, you won’t leave me!’

He arched his eyebrows, and smiled gently.

‘If that’s how you look at it—­well, I must stay.’

‘You can do something here,’ Nancy continued, with rapid pleading.  ’You can write for the papers.  You always said you could—­yes, you did say so.  We don’t need very much to live upon—­at first.  I shall be content—­’

‘A moment.  You mean that the money must be abandoned.’

She had meant it, but under his look her confused thoughts took a new direction.

’No.  We needn’t lose it.  Only stay near me, and I will keep the secret, through everything.  You will only need, then, just to support yourself, and that is so easy.  I will tell Mary how it is.  She can be trusted, I am sure she can.  She would do anything for me.  She knows that father was not thinking of a man such as you.  It would be cruelly wrong if I lost everything.  I will tell her, and she will help me.  Scarcely any one comes to the house, as it is; and I will pretend to have bad health, and shut myself up.  And then, when the time comes, Mary will go away with me, and—­and the child shall be taken care of by some people we can trust to be kind to it.  Horace is going to live in lodgings; and Mrs. Damerel, I am sure, won’t come to see me again; and I can get rid of other people.  The Barmbys shall think I am sulking about the will; I’m sure they think already that I dislike them because of it.  Let them think it; I will refuse,