‘No, I don’t know that it would; in fact, I’m afraid it wouldn’t; but, you see, there’s so _much_ dependent upon it that——’ ‘Then I’ll go anyway, proper or improper,’ she said, with a beautiful and generous enthusiasm. ‘Oh, I shall be so happy to think I’m helping.’ ‘Helping, dear? Why, you’ll be doing it all. You’re so beautiful, and so lovely, and so winning, that with you there I can pile our salary up till I break those good old fellows, and they’ll never have the heart to struggle.’ Sho! you should have seen the rich blood mount, and her happy eyes shine! ‘You wicked flatterer! There isn’t a word of truth in what you say, but still I’ll go with you. Maybe it will teach you not to expect other people to look with your eyes.’ Were my doubts dissipated? Was my confidence restored? You may judge by this fact: privately I raised my salary to twelve hundred the first year on the spot. But I didn’t tell her; I saved it for a surprise. All the way home I was in the clouds, Hastings talking, I not hearing a word. When he and I entered my parlour he brought me to myself with his fervent appreciations of my manifold comforts and luxuries. ‘Let me just stand here a little and look my fill! Dear me, it’s a palace; it’s just a palace! And in it everything a body _could_ desire, including cozy coal fire and supper standing ready. Henry, it doesn’t merely make me realise how rich you are; it makes me realise to the bone, to the marrow, how poor I am—how poor I am—and how miserable, how defeated, routed, annihilated!’ Plague take it! this language gave me the cold shudders. It scared me broad awake, and made me comprehend that I was standing on a half-inch crust, with a crater underneath. _I_ didn’t know I had been dreaming—that is, I hadn’t been allowing myself to know it for a while back; but _now_—oh, dear! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a lovely girl’s happiness or woe in my hands, and nothing in front of me but a salary which might never—oh, _would_ never—materialise! Oh, oh, oh, I am ruined past hope; nothing can save me! ‘Henry, the mere unconsidered drippings of your daily income would——’ ‘Oh, my daily income! Here, down with this hot Scotch, and cheer up your soul. Here’s with you! Or, no—you’re hungry; sit down and——’ ‘Not a bite for me; I’m past it. I can’t eat, these days; but I’ll drink with you till I drop. Come!’ ‘Barrel for barrel, I’m with you! Ready! Here we go! Now, then, Lloyd, unreel your story while I brew.’ ‘Unreel it? What, again?’ ‘Again? What do you mean by that?’ ‘Why, I mean do you want to hear it _over_ again?’ ‘Do I want to hear it _over_ again? This _is_ a puzzler. Wait; don’t take any more of that liquid. You don’t need it.’ ‘Look here, Henry, you alarm me. Didn’t I tell you the whole story on the way here?’ ‘You?’ ‘Yes, I.’ ‘I’ll be hanged if I heard a word of it.’ ‘Henry, this is a serious thing. It troubles me. What did you take up yonder at the minister’s?’