There were tears in honest Charley Yeldham's eyes as he sat himself down by his friend, and took his hand and said, "Come, Robert--be a man. I know it's hard to bear, horribly hard, and no preaching, and no attempt at consolation will make it any better. It must be faced and battled with. She's gone, and we must find her. It's one consolation to know that wherever she may be, she'll be certain, by that wonderful something which I have often felt, but which I can't explain, and which is innate in her, to command the respect of those she is thrown among. But the money-test is decidedly an awkward one. She has some jewels, you say; but she'll know nothing of the way to convert them into cash, and she's sure to be awfully done; and I suppose she was like most women, had not the least knowledge of the value of money?" "Well, no, poor child--not much, I think; you see, she has never had to----" "Of course not; I know. Look here, Robert; you must take a blunt question from a blunt man, and give a blunt answer if you choose. Is what is beginning to be murmured about you in the City true?" The colour flushed up into Robert Streightley's pale face at the question. The pride in his wife, in his position, had been things of later days; the pride in his City stability had been born in him, and nurtured in his youth. "I will answer you, Charley, in all truth," he said, with quivering lips; "but you must tell me first what the report is." "The report is, that, hit heavily by the failure of Hicks' bank, you have been trying to recover leeway by--well, what they call wild speculation; that you've got some tremendous bills in hand, and that----" "There; quite enough. Public rumour is, as usual, considerably in advance of the truth. We were hit by Hicks' failure, but you'll find that Streightley and Son will weather the gale yet. Pshaw!" Streightley exclaimed, suddenly changing his tone--"I got relief from one confession, why should not I from another? I won't disguise from you, my dear Charley, that we have been very heavily hit, and that our present situation is--well, what may be called precarious; but I hope, and think, we shall pull through." "Has this state of things been for long?" "Well--for some months." "And Mrs. Streightley knew nothing of it?" "God forbid! Knowing how she had been purchased, was I to yield up the sole influence I possessed over her by telling her that the gold for which she had been sacrificed was only dross and dead leaves, and that the 'merchant prince' was on the brink of ruin? Not I. And what has it come to now? She is gone, and I am left alone in my misery and desolation." His head fell on his breast as he said this, and the big tears rolled down his cheeks.