‘No.--Why are you treating me like this? Are you ashamed that your friend saw me?’ ‘Ashamed? not at all.’ ‘Who did he think I was?’ ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t know anything about you, at all events. As you may guess, I have something not very pleasant to tell. I didn’t mean to be unkind; it was only the surprise at seeing you when I opened the door. I had calculated the exact time. But never mind. You look cold; warm yourself at the fire. You shall drink a glass of wine; it will put your nerves right again.’ ‘No, I want nothing. Tell me at once what it is.’ But Tarrant quietly brought a bottle and glass from his cupboard. Nancy again refused, pettishly. ‘Until you have drunk,’ he said, with a smile of self-will, ‘I shall tell you nothing.’ ‘I don’t know what I’ve done to make you like this.’ Her sobs and tears returned. After a moment of impatience, Tarrant went up to her with the glass, laid a hand upon her shoulder, and kissed her. ‘Now, come, be reasonable. We have uncommonly serious things to talk about.’ ‘What did your friend think of me?’ ‘That you were one of the prettiest girls he had ever been privileged to see, and that I was an enviable fellow to have such a visitor. There now, another sip, and let us have some colour back into your cheeks. There’s bad news, Nancy; confoundedly bad news, dear girl. My grandmother was dead when I got there. Well, the foolish old woman has been muddling her affairs for a long time, speculating here and there without taking any one’s advice, and so on; and the result is that she leaves nothing at all.’ Nancy was mute. ‘Less than nothing, indeed. She owed a few hundreds that she had no means of paying. The joke of the thing is, that she has left an elaborate will, with legacies to half-a-dozen people, myself first of all. If she had been so good as to die two years ago, I should have come in for a thousand a year or so. No one suspected what was going on; she never allowed Vawdrey, the one man who could have been useful to her, to have an inkling of the affair. An advertising broker got her in his clutches. Vawdrey’s lawyer has been going through her papers, and finds everything quite intelligible. The money has gone in lumps, good after bad. Swindling, of course, but perfectly legal swindling, nothing to be done about it. A minute or two before her death she gasped out some words of revelation to the nurse, enough to set Vawdrey on the track, when he was told.’ Still the listener said nothing. ‘Well, I had a talk with Vawdrey. He’s a blackguard, but not a bad fellow. Wished he could help me, but didn’t quite see how, unless I would go into business. However, he had a suggestion to make.’ For Nancy, the pause was charged with apprehensions. She seemed to discover in her husband’s face a purpose which he knew would excite her resistance.