"No, it's more than the toothache, confound it!--it never leaves off. The truth is, I'm in the tightest place of my life, and to keep what I own would cost me more than I've got. I haven't the money to pay up--and if I can't buy outright, you see that I must let go." "I've done what I could for you, Ben, and if there is more I can do, heaven knows I'll be thankful enough." "You've already done too much, General, but I've made sure that you shan't suffer by it. I've simply gone down, that's all, and I've got to stay there till I can get on my feet. The bank will close temporarily, I suppose, but when it starts again, it will have to start with another man. I shall look out for a smaller job." "If you come back to the road, I'll find a place for you--but it won't be like being a bank president, you know." "Well, when the time comes, I'll let you know," I added, when the buggy stopped before my door, and I handed him the reins. "Listen to me, my boy," he called back, as he drove off and I went up the brown stone steps, "and take a julep." But the support I needed was not that of whiskey, and though I swallowed a dozen juleps, the thought of Sally's face when I broke the news would suffer no blessed obscurity. "Shall I tell her now, or after dinner?" I asked, while I drew out my latch-key; and then when she met me at the head of the staircase, with her shining eyes, I grew cowardly again, and said, "Not now--not now. To-night I will tell her." At night, when we sat opposite to each other, with a silver bowl of jonquils between us, she began talking idly about the marriage of Bonny Page, inspired, I felt, by a valiant determination to save the situation in the eyes of the servants at least. The small yellow candle shades, made to resemble flowers, shone like suns in a mist before my eyes; and all the time that my thoughts worked over the approaching hour, I heard, like a muffled undertone, the soft, regular footfalls of old Esdras, the butler, on the velvet carpet. "I'll tell her after the servants have gone, and the house is quiet--when she has taken off her dinner gown--when she may turn on her pillow and cry it out. I'll say simply, 'Sally, I am ruined. I haven't a penny left of my own. Even the horses and the carriages and the furniture are not mine!' No, that is a brutal way. It will be better to put it like this"--"What did you say, dear?" I asked, speaking aloud. "Only that Bonny Page is to have six bridesmaids, but the wedding will be quiet, because they have lost money." "They've lost money?" "Everybody has lost money--everybody, the General says. Ben, do you know," she added, "I've never cared truly about money in my heart."