Inman hated her. How she knew it she could not have explained, for until the boy came he had been always endurable though he spared her the pretence of affection. The first time her eyes fell upon him after the severity of the crisis was over, she knew that he hated her and that he wished her to know it. Lazily, she had wondered what had happened to effect the change when she had given him a son; but no disappointment mixed with the curiosity, for her feeling towards him was colder and more colourless than hatred, being just elementary indifference and there was no fear, for the indifference extended to her own safety. It interested her to note that none of the women who visited her spoke ill of her husband, though they referred to Baldwin’s downward course with many a gloomy anticipation of quick disaster. Even Keturah appeared to find him tolerable, and shared the general opinion that it was he who kept the ship afloat, and would save it if salvation was still possible. Nancy smiled and said nothing, waiting the development of events with a strange incuriosity that was the result of her slack hold on life. Since the nurse’s departure Nancy and Keturah had slept together, and except at meal times, whole days passed when husband and wife never saw each other. Occasionally a day would end without the interchange of a spoken word. She was therefore surprised when he entered the parlour one evening in November when the two women were sitting together in the firelight, and with an authoritative movement of the head bade Keturah withdraw. “I suppose you don’t need to be told,” he said in a hard voice into which he tried to impart sufficient warmth for his purpose, “that Baldwin’s on his last legs?” “It’s what you’ve led me to expect,” she replied listlessly. “You take it coolly,” he replied with ill-suppressed irritation. “Why shouldn’t I?” she answered. “It’s what you’ve been looking for, isn’t it?—what you’ve been working for?” He uttered an angry exclamation, and sat down beside her, putting his face close to hers and speaking in a low voice. He was obviously holding himself under restraint with some difficulty. “Listen!” he said. “I’m inclined to save him, if he can be saved. It’ll come to the same thing in the end, but I see no other way of becoming top dog than by giving him a lift for a few months. You wouldn’t understand if I was to explain——” “Then tell me what you want of me,” she said wearily. “There’s something you want me to do or you wouldn’t have come—I’ve wit enough to understand that. It’s money, I suppose?” “It’s money,” he admitted sullenly; “but it isn’t money _you_ can lend. You’re in with him already, and if the business fell to pieces you’d be in no better position than any other creditor. They’d try their best to make out ’at you were a partner——” “Now you’re explaining,” she interrupted with a smile, “and you’ve already told me I shan’t understand.”