For a while Nell remained silent with her eyes fixed thoughtfully upon the ground. Douglas was afraid that he had said too much, and had offended her. But when she lifted her face and he saw the expression upon it, he knew that he was wrong. Her cheeks were aglow with animation and her eyes beamed with eagerness.
"Do you mind if I tell you something?" she asked. "Part of it is known only to Nan and me. I feel that I can trust you."
"I shall be delighted to hear," Douglas replied, "and I am most grateful for your confidence in me."
"I am very much worried about what will happen to us and our little home," she began. "You see, when father was a professor at Passdale he bought this place for a summer residence, and my dear mother always loved it so much. When he became blind, we moved here, and lived very comfortably because he had a private income. But in a fatal moment he was induced to invest all he had in the Big Chief gold mine out west. Every one was talking about it and what a splendid investment it was. We were sure that in a few months we would be very rich. But you know what happened to that. There was bad management somewhere, the works shut down, and so many people were ruined."
"Indeed I know," Douglas emphatically replied. "I was bitten, too, and lost my all. It wasn't much, to be sure, but it meant a great deal to me."
"It was ruin to us," Nell continued. "For a while I thought father would go out of his mind, he felt so badly. Then, to add to our trouble, Nan became ill, and it took our last dollar to pay the doctor and other expenses. At length, we were forced to mortgage the place to Mr. Stubbles to pay our grocery bill which had grown so large. It is that which has been hanging over our home like a terrible cloud for several years now."
Nell paused and looked out over the water. The glow of evening touched her face and soft hair, and made her seem to the young man watching her as if she were not of this earth, so beautiful did she appear. What right had such a woman to be troubled? he asked himself. How he longed to do something to help her.
"So you came to the rescue, and started farming."
"There was nothing else to do," she smilingly replied. "I felt the responsibility, and had to do something. I didn't know much about gardening at first, and made many mistakes. But we have managed to live, pay the interest on the mortgage and part of the principal. But we are in danger of losing everything now," she added with a note of sadness in her voice.
"In what way?"