“Mary, Mary, what are you saying! I can’t let you have the money. I sent it away two days ago. I was afraid to hold it. Your plight can’t be worse than mine, Mary,” he groaned. “God help me, I didn’t mean to tell you, but perhaps it’s best, after 59 all, that you should know everything—for it will make the parting with Dick less hard.”
“With Dick? What has your trouble got to do with Dick? Tell me quickly—tell me,” and her voice dropped to a sobbing whisper. She was terribly overwrought, and ready to expect anything.
“I’ve had a letter threatening his arrest.”
“Arrest!” she cried, starting up. Her voice was a chord of fear.
“A money-lender intends to arrest him, if he attempts to leave the state—that is, unless I’m prepared to pay a debt of seven hundred and fifty dollars. I,” added the rector, in a broken voice, “a man without a penny in the world—a spendthrift, a muddler, a borrower, a man dependent upon the bounty of others.”
“Hush, John, hush!” cried his wife, coming closer to him. “You are not to blame. Your life is one long sacrifice to others. It is I who am wrong—oh! so wrong! But it shall all be different soon. I will stand by you and help you. No one shall be able to say that you work alone in the future. I’ll live your life, dear. Only let us get out of this awful tangle, and all will be right. I’ll go to father again, and tell him just how things stand; and, if he won’t give me the money, he shall lend it to me. It will be ours some day. It is ours—it 60 ought to be ours. He can’t refuse—he shall not!”
She turned to pace the room feverishly for a few moments, then, going over to her husband again, she linked her arm affectionately in his. “It will be all right. Our luck must surely change, John. I feel it in my bones—not that there is any sign of it to-day. How can they arrest Dick if he goes to the war?”
“Oh! It’s some legal technicality. I don’t understand it. I’ve heard of it before. Some judgment has been given against him, and the money-lender has power to make him pay with the first cash he gets, or something of that kind. They’ve found out that he’s been paying other people, I suppose.”
“Arrest him! What insolence! As if we hadn’t enough trouble of our own without Dick’s affairs crippling us at such a time. He absolutely must go—especially after the things that cad Ormsby insinuated.”
“But how about your own trouble, darling? Why must you have a thousand dollars?”