So the best pair went to Tattersall's, and some of the diamonds to a corresponding establishment in the jewellery line; and various other things were done or attempted with the view of letting free a few thousand pounds and of diminishing expenditure in the future. But John Fanshaw's brow grew no clearer. About these sacrifices there hung the air of doing what was right and proper--what, given the worst happening, would commend itself to the feelings of the creditors and the Official Receiver--rather than of achieving anything of real service. Christine guessed that the speculations must have been on a very large scale and the commitments very heavy. Could it be that ruin--real ruin--was in front of them? She could hardly realise that--either its coming or what life would be after it had come. And in her heart--here too she had said no more than truth--she did doubt whether John would stay in the world to see. Well, what could she do? She had three hundred a year of her own tied up, and (since they had no children) to go back to her people on her death. If the ruin came, she could find crusts for herself and John--if John were there. These were the thoughts which had kept intruding into her mind as she talked to Anna Selford and shivered now and then over the blazing fire. Yet she could face them better than John, thanks to a touch of fatalism in her nature. She would think of no violent step to avoid what she feared. Hating it, she would sit shivering by the fire, and wait for it all the same. She knew this of herself, and therefore was even more sorry for John than on her own account. This state of mind made the amiability easier. It also awoke her conscience from a long sleep with regard to the way in which she had treated John in the past. Against this, however, she struggled not only fiercely, but with a conviction of justice. Here conscience was overdoing its part, and passing from scrupulousness to morbidity. The thing in question, the thing conscience had awoken about, belonged to the far past; it had been finished off and written off, enjoyed and deplored, brooded over and violently banished from thought, ever so long ago. Hardly anybody knew about it; it was utterly over. None the less, the obstinate irrational digs which conscience--awake again--gave her about it increased as John's face grew gloomier. Late in the afternoon John Fanshaw came to his wife's room for a cup of tea. "The pair went for only two hundred and forty-five," he said; "I gave four hundred for them six months ago. Ah, well, a forced sale, you know!" "It doesn't make much difference, does it?" she asked. "No," he said, absently stirring his tea. "Not much, Christine." She sat very quiet by the fire watching him; her screen was in her hand again. "It's no use, we must face it," he broke out suddenly. "Everything's gone against me again this week. I had a moral certainty; but--well, that isn't a certainty. And----" He took a great gulp of tea.