“I can’t do that. And I can’t talk to you here. Papa drove me out and he’s likely to come back this way.”
“You seem to be pretty chummy with that clerk of mine,” Copeland remarked.
“I am; it began about sixteen years ago,” she answered, with a laugh. “We rose from the same ash-dump.”
He frowned, not comprehending. She was about to turn away when he began speaking rapidly:—
“You’ve got to hear me, Nan! I haven’t bothered you for a long time; you’ve treated me pretty shabbily after all there’s been between us; but you can square all that now. I’m in the deepest kind of trouble. Farley deliberately planned to ruin me and he’s about done it! I’ve paid him off, but I had to pledge half my stock in the store with the Western National to raise the money, and now my notes are due there and they’re going to pinch me. Eichberg is a director in the bank and he means to buy in that stock—you can see the game. Corbin & Eichberg are scheming to wipe me out and combine the two houses. And Farley’s put them up to it!”
His face twisted nervously as he talked. He was thinner than when she saw him last, but he bore no marks of hard living. His story was plausible; Farley had told her a month ago that he had got his money out of Copeland, but it hadn’t occurred to her that the loan might have been paid with money borrowed elsewhere.
“Of course, you won’t lose the business, Billy. It wouldn’t be square to treat you that way.”
“Square! I tell you it was all framed up, and I’ve reason to know that Farley stands in with them. It’s a fine revenge he’s taking on me for daring to love you!”
She shook her head and drew further away from him.
“Now, Billy, none of that! That’s all over.”