“Yes, Fanny, I do want you. Sit down for a moment.” And walking across the room, he placed his whip in its proper place.
“Oh, Mark, is there anything the matter?”
“Yes, dearest; yes. Sit down, Fanny; I can talk to you better if you will sit.”
But she, poor lady, did not wish to sit. He had hinted at some misfortune, and therefore she felt a longing to stand by him and cling to him.
“Well, there; I will if I must; but, Mark, do not frighten me. Why is your face so very wretched?”
“Fanny, I have done very wrong,” he said. “I have been very foolish. I fear that I have brought upon you great sorrow and trouble.” And then he leaned his head upon his hand and turned his face away from her.
“Oh, Mark, dearest Mark, my own Mark! what is it?” and then she was quickly up from her chair, and went down on her knees before him. “Do not turn from me. Tell me, Mark! tell me, that we may share it.”
“Yes, Fanny, I must tell you now; but I hardly know what you will think of me when you have heard it.”
“I will think that you are my own husband, Mark; I will think that—that chiefly, whatever it may be.” And then she caressed his knees, and looked up in his face, and, getting hold of one of his hands, pressed it between her own. “Even if you have been foolish, who should forgive you if I cannot?”
And then he told it her all, beginning from that evening when Mr. Sowerby had got him into his bedroom, and going on gradually, now about the bills, and now about the horses, till his poor wife was utterly lost in the complexity of the accounts. She could by no means follow him in the details of his story; nor could she quite sympathize with him in his indignation against Mr. Sowerby, seeing that she did not comprehend at all the nature of the renewing of a bill. The only part to her of importance in the matter was the amount of money which her husband would be called upon to pay;—that and her strong hope, which was already a conviction, that he would never again incur such debts.