"Certainly--for to-night," he answered, "seeing the shops are shut. But is that all that's troubling you?" he went on. "It seems to me quite enough," I said again; "and if you had the housekeeping to do, and the bills to pay, you would think a solitary half-crown quite enough to make you miserable." "Never mind--so long as it's a good one," he said. "I'll get you more to-morrow." "How can you do that?" I asked. "Easily," he answered. "You'll see. Don't you trouble your dear heart about it for a moment." I felt relieved, and asked him no more questions. The next morning, when I went into the study to speak to him, he was not there; and I guessed that he had gone to town to get the money, for he had not been out before since his illness, at least without me. But I hoped of all things he was not going to borrow it of a money-lender, of which I had a great and justifiable horror, having heard from himself how a friend of his had in such a case fared. I would have sold three-fourths of the things in the house rather. But as I turned to leave the study, anxious both about himself and his proceedings, I thought something was different, and soon discovered that a certain favorite picture was missing from the wall: it was clear he had gone either to sell it or raise money upon it. By our usual early dinner-hour, he returned, and put into my hands, with a look of forced cheerfulness, two five-pound notes. "Is that all you got for that picture?" I said. "That is all Mr. ---- would advance me upon it," he answered. "I thought he had made enough by me to have risked a little more than that; but picture-dealers--Well, never mind. That is enough to give time for twenty things to happen." And no doubt twenty things did happen, but none of them of the sort he meant. The ten pounds sank through my purse like water through gravel. I paid a number of small bills at once, for they pressed the more heavily upon me that I knew the money was wanted; and by the end of another fortnight we were as badly off as before, with an additional trouble, which in the circumstances was any thing but slight.