I did not answer. To tell the truth I was not entirely overcome by surprise at the disclosure. I had begun to suspect something of the sort. Yet, now that my suspicions were confirmed, I was too greatly shocked and horrified to speak at once.
“Well?” he sneered. “Now will you clear out and let me settle this my own way?”
I pulled my chair forward and sat down.
“Tell me all about it, George,” I said, as calmly as I could. “How much is it?”
He stared at me aghast. “You won't go?” he cried. “You—you are going to stick by me even—even—”
“There! there! pull yourself together, old fellow. We won't give up the ship yet. How much is it? It can't be a great sum.”
“It ain't. But, Ros—you—you can't—you mustn't be mixed up in this. I shan't let you. Don't you see?”
I argued and pleaded and reasoned with him for what seemed a long time before he would consent to tell me the whole story. And when it was told there was nothing new or novel in it. The old tale of an honest man who had not meant to go wrong, but, tempted by one of those wiles of the devil, an “inside tip” on the stock market, had bought heavily on margins, expecting to clear a handsome profit in a short time. The stock was Louisville and Transcontinental and the struggle for its control by certain big interests had made copy for financial writers for nearly a year. George had bought at a time when one syndicate had, so it believed, secured the control.
Then something went wrong in the deal and the shares began to decline in value. He put up more margins and still more, but it continued to decline. Finally under the spur of another “tip,” the last of his own savings having gone to the insatiate brokers, he sent, to bolster his account and to save him from utter ruin, some bonds belonging to the bank.
“Not much,” he declared, “only about thirty-five hundred dollars' worth, that's all. I never would have done it, Ros, but I was wild, desperate, you see. Here I was, getting ready to be married; Nellie and Cap'n Jed and the rest believing me to be comfortably fixed. It's easy enough now to say that I ought to have gone to her and told her. If I hadn't been certain that the market would turn and I'd be all right in a week, I'd have done it. But I was sure I'd be all right and I couldn't take the chance. I knew what her father would say about her marrying a pauper, and I just couldn't take the risk of losing her; I couldn't. She means more to me than—than—oh, wait until your time comes! Wait until the girl comes along that you care for more than the whole world. And then see what you'd do. See what it would mean to give her up! Just wait—wait and see!”