"Can't you shut up the Bank, and you and Bee"--Beatrice, his wife--"come and stay with me for a while? We could leave England and live on a thousand a year in the south of France, or anywhere you like, and save up a thousand a year to start you again----" "I would die ten thousand deaths, dear mother, rather than touch your money," he cried fervently, catching her hand and holding it in both his, and opening his hands now and then to kiss the shrivelled hand which had once, when soft and full, joined his--then softer and fuller--in prayer, and now, when he was strong and she was weak, tried to shield and succour him as in the days when he was a little child. "Don't be sentimental at such a crisis," cried his mother petulantly. "You shall do as I say; or if you like, when the Bank affair is settled, we can sell the annuity. I know I'm old, and it's not worth many years' purchase; but we should get a few thousand for it, and that would give you a fresh start in some other business. Now I tell you this is what _shall_ happen. Do you hear me? I will not wait for your consent; this very day I will see about selling the annuity--what do you call it? capitalising it? Go, Henry, and no more nonsense about gunpowder and bullets. Such things are only fit for the stage or the Continent, and are quite beneath the notice of a sensible English man of business." He rose to his feet and cried: "You shall not, you must not, mother. I have been making out things worse than they really are. I am depressed and ill. Believe me, there is no need for doing what you say. There is one venture of mine, in no way connected with the late war, the greatest of all my ventures; and although I do not look on it as a very safe or sound venture, it may come all right yet. I shall know in a fortnight. You must promise me to do nothing until then. Promise me, my dear mother!" He spoke eagerly, passionately; and as he uttered the final words he caught both her hands in his, and looked beseechingly into her eyes. "And in a fortnight you will tell me?" she asked, looking searchingly into his face. "In a fortnight I will tell you." "And between this and then you will not, in my presence or in your own secret mind, speak or think about such nonsense as daggers or poison-bowls, or gunpowder or bullets?" she asked scornfully. "I promise I will not." "Very well," she said; "I will do nothing till I hear from you at the end of a fortnight. Let us shake hands, Henry, and part friends." "Friends!" he exclaimed, as tears of love and sorrow came into his eyes. "Mother, you are the only one on earth I love now." "Hush, sir! How dare you say such a thing!" "I swear it!" he cried vehemently. "I would do anything, dare anything, for you, mother----" "And for your wife," she added, as if reminding him of an omission made in carelessness. He paid no attention to her suggestion. "You are the only one in the world who knows me really."