"Yes, I will," she cried. "I feel that I can. Oh, Robert, let it be always thus in the future. Treat me as your partner, your inferior in brain and power, but still your helpmate. I will toil so hard to make myself worthy of my husband. Now tell me everything. Stop! I know," she cried; "it is something connected with the visits of that Mr Crellock, that man you helped in his difficulties years ago." "I helped? Who told you that?" She smiled. "Ah! these things are so talked of. Mrs Pinet told Miss Heathery, and she came and told me. I felt so proud of you, dear, for your unselfish behaviour towards this man. Do you suppose I forget his coming on our wedding-day, and how troubled you were till you had sent him away by the coach?" "You said nothing?" "Said nothing? Was I ever one to pry into my husband's business matters? I said to myself that I would wait till he thought me old enough in years, clever enough in wisdom, to be trusted. And now, after this long probation, you will trust me, love?" He nodded. "And your troubles shall grow less by being shared. Now tell me I am right about it. Your worry is due to this Mr Crellock?" "Yes," he said in a low voice. "I knew it," she cried. "You have always been troubled when he came down, and when you went up to town. I knew as well as if you had told me that you had seen him when you went up. There was always the same harassed, careworn look in your eyes; and Robert, darling, if you had known how it has made me suffer, you would have come to me for consolation, if not for help." "Ah! yes, perhaps." "Now go on," she said firmly, and rising from her place by his knees, she took a chair and drew it near him. "There," she said smiling; "you shall see how business-like I will be." He sat with his brow knit for a few minutes, and then drew a long breath. "You are right," he said. "Stephen Crellock is mixed up with it. You shall know all. And mind this, whatever people may say--" "Whatever people may say!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "I am innocent; my hands are clean." "As if I needed telling that," she said with a proud smile. "Now I am waiting, tell me all." "Oh, there is little to tell," he said quickly. "That fellow Crellock, by his plausible baits, has led me into all kinds of speculations." "I thought so," she said to herself. "I failed in one, and then he tempted me to try another to cover my loss; and so it went on and on, till--" "Till what?" she said with her eyes dilating; and a chill feeling of horror which startled her began to creep to her heart. "Till the losses were so great that large sums of money were necessary, and--" "Robert!" "Don't look at me in that way, Milly," he said, with a half-laugh, "you are not going to begin by distrusting me?" "No, no," she panted. "Well, till large sums were necessary, and the scoundrel literally forced me to raise money from the bank."