“You must think of some expedient.”  Mrs. Dinneford’s manner grew impressive.  She spoke with emphasis and deliberation.  “Beyond the sum of two thousand dollars, which I will get for you by to-morrow, I shall not advance a single penny.  You may set that down as sure.  If you are not sharp enough and strong enough, with the advantage you possess, to hold your own, then you must go under; as for me, I have done all that I can or will.”

Freeling saw that she was wholly in earnest, and understood what she meant by “desperate expedients.”  Granger was to be ruined, and she was growing impatient of delay.  He had no desire to hurt the young man—­he rather liked him.  Up to this time he had been content with what he could draw out of Mrs. Dinneford.  There was no risk in this sort of business.  Moreover, he enjoyed his interviews and confidences with the elegant lady, and of late the power he seemed to be gaining over her; this power he regarded as capital laid up for another use, and at another time.

But it was plain that he had reached the end of his present financial policy, and must decide whether to adopt the new one suggested by Mrs. Dinneford or make a failure, and so get rid of his partner.  The question he had to settle with himself was whether he could make more by a failure than by using Granger a while longer, and then throwing him overboard, disgraced and ruined.  Selfish and unscrupulous as he was, Freeling hesitated to do this.  And besides, the “desperate expedients” he would have to adopt in the new line of policy were fraught with peril to all who took part in them.  He might fall into the snare set for another—­might involve himself so deeply as not to find a way of escape.

“To-morrow we will talk this matter over,” he said in reply to Mrs. Dinneford’s last remark; “in the mean time I will examine the ground thoroughly and see how it looks.”

“Don’t hesitate to make any use you can of Granger,” suggested the lady.  “He has done his part toward getting things tangled, and must help to untangle them.”

“All right, ma’am.”

And they separated, Mrs. Dinneford reaching the street by one door of the hotel, and Freeling by another.

On the following day they met again, Mrs. Dinneford bringing the two thousand dollars.

“And now what next?” she asked, after handing over the money and taking the receipt of “Freeling & Granger.”  Her eyes had a hard glitter, and her face was almost stern in its expression.  “How are you going to raise money and keep afloat?”

“Only some desperate expedient is left me now,” answered Freeling, though not in the tone of a man who felt himself at bay.  It was said with a wicked kind of levity.

Mrs. Dinneford looked at him keenly.  She was beginning to mistrust the man.  They gazed into each other’s faces in silence for some moments, each trying to read what was in the other’s thought.  At length Freeling said,