“I don’t doubt but what you’ll make things hum,” she said, and although there was no enthusiasm in the tone, a look of satisfaction came into Inman’s eyes as he recognised the implication of the tense she had employed. “Lend me the money,” he replied, “and I’ll make this the best country business in Craven. I’ll——But it’s no use dreaming dreams; I’ve thought this thing out and I know what I can do. I can make you rich in a few years, Nancy!” “Can you?” Nancy had better have withheld the exclamation or have uttered it with less meaning, for its weary note told a story with which Inman was already too familiar; but the contraction of brow was only momentary, and he forced himself to laugh. “Never mind! You shall see! And you shall have five per cent. for pin money as we go along.” Nancy smiled, not realising what damage that runaway sigh had done her, not suspecting the volcanic anger that was hidden beneath her husband’s smooth words. “Do as you like,” she said. “Leave me a couple of hundreds in the bank and you can have the rest.” It was better than he had expected, but he veiled his gratification and appeared to hesitate. “I shall be able to manage,” he said finally. “I should like to launch out, but we’ll talk it over again when I’ve had a chat with the bank manager. It ’ud pay you to sell your investments; but there’s always the property for additional security, of course. Besides, I’m not captain yet. Baldwin’s still on the bridge.” He laughed and stretched himself. Nancy wondered if he would kiss her if only on the forehead, as he had been wont to do when she had happened to please him, though not since his child had come. She half hoped he would not; yet when he left the room with no word of farewell her spirits sank. “He _does_ hate me,” she said to herself. “Well, after all, it makes no difference. We must live as well as we can!” A month later the business became Inman’s. He had not spared his master in the evidence he had been called upon to give, and Baldwin had been severely lectured by Registrar, Official Receiver and various crabbed lawyers, each of whom was at pains to point out that by refusing to take the advice of such a counsellor as his foreman—a counsellor, who, as the Official Receiver remarked, had been a veritable god-out-of-the-machine if Baldwin had not been too pig-headed and intemperate to make use of him—he had brought himself and his creditors into this unenviable position. The Registrar complimented Inman on his devotion to duty and expressed his sympathy with him in the loss of so much of his savings. It was true, he said, that bills of sale were not regarded with favour by the Court, but he quite recognised that in this case it had been regarded more or less as a formality, and the readiest, if not the only method of partially securing the loan.