"Then why did you come? You always had the faculty, Laura, of doing the wrong thing. You've been a curse to me all my life!"
"Some of that's true, John," she answered simply, "and a good deal of it isn't. Maybe I said the wrong thing sometimes, or did the wrong thing. I never had much training. I was meant for Kelly Row, I reckon—I'd never have fitted in here. We tried it! But I didn't come to glorify myself because you've lost this place, and everything you had. I just thought—"
"Well, Laura, what was it that you just thought? I can't stand here talking all the time. It isn't right, it isn't proper. I'm worn out!"
"Of course it isn't, John. I'm going right away. But you see, when I came away I just thought this way—here am I, an old woman that don't need much money any more. And there's Grace;—and maybe now John has need for money when everybody's turned against him. And if he does need money, why—"
V
"What do you mean, Laura?" gasped John Rawn. "What's that you said about money?"
"How much would do you any good, John?" she asked, fumbling in her bulging hand-bag.
"I might as well wish for the moon as for a dollar," he said bitterly. "If I had a million, or a half million, to-morrow, I'd pull it all together, even yet."
"A half million, John?" she said, taking out of her bag a little, wrinkled, flat porte-monnaie such as women sometimes use for carrying change in their marketing; but still continuing her fumbling at the portly bag.
"Yes, if I had a half million I could put this company on its feet, even yet—the secret's out that Halsey had,—but I'd get it somewhere. I more than half believe those fellows have got it, somewhere else, somehow—that fellow Van's deep. You see, they've been fighting me, Laura—made up a gang against me! I know who it was. If I had a half million I'd throw in with Van—he's got this secret somehow—he knows something about it. I'd throw in with him, and we'd whip the others, even yet! I'd get it all back in my hands even yet, I tell you!