A flush, that had shown itself in the clear olive face when Mr. Greatorex began to speak, faded to whiteness; the hand, that accidentally touched his father's, felt fevered in all its veins. "At least, my wife is not the cause of my illness," he answered in a low tone. "I don't know that, Bede. That a great worry lies on your heart continually, that a kind of restless, nervous anxiety never leaves you by night or by day, is sufficiently plain to me; I know that it can only arise from matters connected with your wife: and I also know that this, and this alone, tells upon your bodily health. Your wife's extravagance is bringing you care: ruin will surely supervene if you do not check it." Bede Greatorex opened his lips to speak, but seemed to think better of it, and closed them again. His brow was knitted in two upright lines. "Unless you can do so, Bede, I shall be compelled to make an alteration in our arrangements. In justice to myself and to my other children, your name must be withdrawn from the firm. Not yourself and your profits: only the name, as a matter of safety." Bede Greatorex bit his lips. His father's heart ached for him. For a long while Mr. Greatorex had seen that his son's unhappy state of mind (and that it was unhappy no keen observer, much with him, could mistake) arose through his wife. And he thought Bede a fool for putting up with her. "You need not be afraid," said Bede. "I will take care the firm's interests are not affected." "How can you take care?" retorted Mr. Greatorex, in rather a stern tone. "When debts are being made daily in the most reckless manner: debts that you know nothing of, until the bills come trooping in and you are called upon to pay, can you answer for what it will go on to? Can I? Many a richer man than either of us, Bede, has been brought to the Bankruptcy Court through less than this. Ay, and I will tell you what else, Bede--it has brought husbands to the grave. When people remark to me, 'Your son Bede looks ill,' I quietly answer 'Do you think so?' when all the while I am secretly wondering that you can look even as well as you do." "Who remarks on it?" asked Bede. "Who! Many people. Only the other night, when Henry Ollivera was here, he spoke of it." "Let Henry Ollivera concern himself with his own affairs," was the fierce answer. "Does he want to be a----" Bede's voice dropped to an inaudible whisper. But the concluding words had sounded like--"curse amongst us." "Bede! Did you say _curse?_" "I said _king_," answered Bede. His nostrils were working, his lips were quivering, his chest was heaving; all with a passion he was trying to suppress. Mr. Greatorex looked at him, and waited. He had seen Bede in these intemperate fits of anger before: sometimes for no apparent cause. "We will go book to the starting-point, this cheque, Bede," he quietly said. "You must have overlooked it. Go and search your desk again."