"Who should know better!" exclaimed Jeckie, bitterly.
"Well, that was so," asserted Revis. "So—everything stopped, with those shafts still half-full of water, and——"
"I know how they were, and how all else was," interrupted Jeckie. "You can't tell me anything about that!"
"To be sure!" said Revis, humouring her. "Well, the question was—was it worth while putting more capital—it would have had to be a lot more capital!—to clear the mine, get all going again, and go on? Now, I had some talk with two or three influential men in the district, and we decided to come to your help if we could see that all the money you and Mrs. Albert Grice had put in, and all that we should have to put in would be got back—that, in short, the results would justify the expenditure. In other words, what amount of coal is under this property and close to it? You understand?"
For the first time for many long months a faint flush of colour came to Jeckie Farnish's haggard cheeks, and she spoke with some show of interest.
"You mean to say that there's a doubt?" she asked.
"We'll leave doubts out," answered Revis. "That was the real problem. I put aside all the investigations that you made before you started, and made some of my own, at my own expense. You know what a thorough man I am about such things. Well, I made, at once, more borings, in different parts, not only of your property, but in the land round about. I've known the truth now for a week or two; it's an unpleasant one. There's without doubt a good bed beneath your land, but a small one. What you'd have got out of it would possibly have given you back your capital and a bit over. But there's none elsewhere! And your pit's been so ruined by that explosion, and there's such a body of water that——"
"I understand," said Jeckie, interrupting him with a significant look. "It's useless!"
"If you want plain words, my lass—yes!" answered Revis. "To get that pit cleared and to go on again would cost far more than you'd ever get back. I reckoned everything up, with your partner's assistance—you know she'd power to act for you if you couldn't—and things were just here—what with paying everything up to the time of stoppage and so on, you've just come to the end of your capital, and—there you are! It's a very sad thing, but it's one of these things that have to be faced."
"The workmen and all the rest of them?" asked Jeckie.