"He talked of it more than ever, last night. He went over the word 'million' hundreds of times. Then he would call your name and say 'five-sixteen' as though he was trying to make you understand the meaning of the figures."
It was an incomprehensible mystery, and we had to leave it so.
"Do you know what you are going to do, then?" she asked.
"Sell all the unpledged stock in the house, see what Partridge and Coleman can do for us, and try to stand up the banks for the balance."
Laura Kendrick shook her head, with a business-like expression on her face:
"I wish I could think of something better than that," she said with an attempt at cheeriness. "We shall never get through the day at that rate. But I suppose it's the best that's left us."
The door opened, and Mercy Fillmore appeared. The sudden intrusion of a third person brought to my consciousness a realization of the fascinating breakfast I had been conceded. But if I was so ungallant as to feel disappointment at her interrupting presence, it melted away under the soothing influence that surrounded her.
"What a night we have had!" she said, with an anxious note in the gentle harmonies of her voice. "We were worse frightened at the fire-bells and the shouting of men in the distance than at the drunken hoodlums who passed by the house. Was there much fighting?"
"Enough--but nothing to be frightened about."
"If there was violence," said Mercy, with a trace of anxiety in her tone, "I am afraid that Mr. Parks was among the misguided men. Did you see anything of him?"