"I don't deserve it!" sobbed Chris, clinging faster. "You don't know how bad I am!"
"Hush!" he said, with a restraining hand upon her head. "You have told me everything now?"
"Oh no, I haven't!" she whispered. "There are crowds of things I couldn't even begin to tell you. I have always warned you how it would be. I always said—"
Her agitation was increasing, and her words became inaudible. He saw that her nerves had given way under the long day's strain, and firmly, with infinite gentleness, he put a stop to further discussion of a subject that threatened to upset her seriously.
"Never mind," he said. "You will tell me by and bye, or if you don't I shall know it is all right. Chris, Chris, you mustn't get hysterical. You are worn out, dear, and it has upset your sense of proportion. Come, I am going to send you to bed. We will go into these money matters in the morning."
But Chris vehemently negatived this. "I don't want to—to spoil to-morrow. I—I shouldn't sleep for thinking of it. Oh, Trevor, let's settle it now. I'm going to be sensible—really. And—and—if you'll forgive me for all the bad things I've done up to to-day I—I will really try to tell you everything as it happens from now on. Will you, Trevor?"
She raised pleading, pathetic eyes, still wet with tears. He could feel her still quivering with the emotion she was striving to subdue. She was too near in that moment to resist—perhaps he would not have resisted her in any case; for he had it not in his heart to think ill of her.
"My darling," he said, "we will leave it at that. Only—in the future—trust me as I am trusting you."
He turned to the table and closed the cheque-book. "These debts are my affair. I will settle them. Just tell me what they are."
"Oh, but they are settled!" she told him. "I promised I would, you know."