‘Yes, dear, it was so noble of you.’

’Well, Maude, he was on the platform this morning, and when he saw me, he turned on his heel and hurried out of the station.  I read guilt in his eyes.  I am sure that his accounts are wrong again.’

‘Oh, what an ungrateful wretch!’

’Poor devil, I dare say he has had a bad time.  But I was a fool not to draw out of that.  It was all very well when I was a bachelor.  But here I am as a married man faced with an indefinite liability and nothing to meet it with.  I don’t know what is to become of us, Maude.’

‘How much is it, dearest?’

‘I don’t know.  That is the worst of it.’

‘But surely your own office would not be so hard upon you?’

‘It is not my own office.  It is another office—­the Hotspur.’

‘Oh dear!  What have you done about it, Frank?’

’I called at their office in my lunch-hour, and I requested them to send down an accountant to examine Farintosh’s books.  He will be here to-morrow morning, and I have leave of absence for the day.’

And so they were to spend an evening and a night without knowing whether they were merely crippled or absolutely ruined.  Frank’s nature was really a very proud one, and the thought of failing in his engagements wounded his self-respect most deeply.  His nerves winced and quivered before it.  But her sweet, strong soul rose high above all fear, and bore him up with her, into the serenity of love and trust and confidence.  The really precious things, the things of the spirit, were permanent, and could not be lost.  What matter if they lived in an eight-roomed villa, or in a tent out on the heath?  What matter if they had two servants, or if she worked for him herself?  All this was the merest trifle, the outside of life.  But the intimate things, their love, their trust, their pleasures of mind and soul, these could not be taken away from them while they had life to enjoy them.  And so she soothed Frank with sweet caresses and gentle words, until this night of gloom had turned to the most beautiful of all his life, and he had learned to bless the misfortune which had taught him to know the serene courage and the wholehearted devotion which can only be felt, like the scent of a fragrant leaf, when Fate gives us a crush between its iron fingers.

Shortly after breakfast Mr. Wingfield, the accountant from London, arrived—­a tall, gentlemanly man, with a formal manner.

‘I’m sorry about this business, Mr. Crosse,’ said he.

Frank made a grimace.  ‘It can’t be helped.’

’We will hope that the amount is not very serious.  We have warned Mr. Farintosh that his books will be inspected to-day.  When you are ready we shall go round.’

The agent lived in a side-street not far off.  A brass plate, outside a small brick house, marked it out from the line of other small brick houses.  A sad-faced woman opened the door, and Farintosh himself, haggard and white, was seated among his ledgers in the little front room.  A glance at the man’s helpless face turned all Frank’s resentment to pity.