"No reason for the hope?"

"None that I can see."

"Do you mind telling me how much the 'pittance' really will be? I don't want to tease you—" wistfully—"but if I could be any help—"

"You have every right to know."

"I don't ask it as a right; but are things so desperate?"

"So far as I can make out, when all claims have been met, there may be some three hundred a year left."

"Of madre's?"

"Yours."

"And how much of yours—hers and yours?"

"There can be nothing of ours, in strict justice, till your claims are satisfied."