"You are only saying this to frighten me," she said after a pause, with an attempt to rally.
"If you think that, you are utterly mistaken," said her husband. "I wish, indeed, that it were true, but unfortunately it is not. My position is to the full, as hazardous, and my ruin as imminent as I have told you. You can imagine whether I have a hundred dollars to spare for you to spend at Stewart's."
Mrs. Morton was for a brief time silent. She hardly knew how to answer; at last she said, "There's your sick friend upstairs. Isn't he a rich man?"
"Yes."
"He won't live very long, probably. Won't he leave you anything?"
"I expected that he would leave me his entire fortune, according to an old promise between us; but only yesterday I learned that he has a son living."
"And you will receive nothing, then?" said his wife, disappointed.
"Not so. I shall be left guardian of the boy, and for seven years I shall receive half the income of the property in return for my services."
"And how much is the property?"