"Dallas's affair, Harriet. I am sorry the poor fellow lost his money to him. Hang it, I'm such a bad fellow myself, so utterly gone a'coon" (his wife winced, and her pale face turned paler), "that it comes ill from me to say so, and I wouldn't, except to you. But I am devilish sorry Deane got the chance of cleaning Dallas out. I like the boy; he's a stupid fool, but not half bad, and he didn't deserve such an ill turn of fortune."
"Well," said Harriet, "take comfort in remembering that you helped him."
She spoke very coldly, and evidently was a stranger to the feelings which actuated Routh.
"You don't care about it, that's clear," he remarked.
He was standing still now, leaning against the mantelpiece. She rose and approached him.
"No, Stewart," she said, in her calm sweet voice, which rose a little as she went on, "I do not. I care for nothing on earth (and I never look beyond this earth) but you. I have no interest, no solicitude, for any other creature. I cannot feel any, and it is well. Nothing but this would do in my case."
She stood and looked at him with her deep blue eyes, with her hands folded before her, and with a sober seriousness in her face confirmatory of the words she had spoken. He looked at her until she turned away, and a keen observer might have seen in his face the very slightest expression of impatience.
"Shall we go into those accounts now?" said Harriet; "we shall just have time for it, before you go to Flinders'."
She sat down, as she spoke, before a well-appointed writing table, and, drawing a japan box towards her, opened it, and took out a number of papers. Routh took a seat beside her, and they were soon deep in calculations which would have had little interest or meaning for a third person, had there been one present. By degrees, Routh's face darkened, and many times he uttered angry oaths; but though Harriet watched him narrowly, and felt in every nerve the annoyance under which he was labouring, she preserved her calm manner, and went steadily on with her task; condensing the contents of several papers into brief memoranda, carefully tearing up the originals, and placing the little heaps methodically beside her for consignment to the fire. At length Routh again stood up, and lounged against the mantelpiece.
"All these must be paid, then, Harry?" he asked, as he lighted a cigar, and began to smoke sullenly.