“Not yet! Will you tell me what you mean, Heather?”
“Why, I mean, Arthur, that though you have not told me anything of what you are doing, still, I cannot be blind. I see the stock gone, the crops sold. I know you are engaged in some business with Mr. Black, and that there is money needed for it. You would never have sold the crops so soon, had there not been a necessity for selling them; and then, Arthur, perhaps, when Christmas comes, you may want all the money we can save, and I should not like to spend any unnecessarily now.”
“I shall have money long before Christmas,” he answered.
“You may,” she said, “but you may not. I cannot tell what it is you are doing or expecting, but——”
“Hang it!” broke in Arthur, “is a man bound to tell his wife everything? When you can’t help me—when you would only be trying to dissuade me from my purpose, and keep me from ever rising out of the slough of poverty in which I have passed year after year—why should I talk to you about what I am doing or expecting? Women’s ideas are so contracted; they take such short views; they are so cautious, and so fearful, and so fond of certainties, that there is no use in even trying to make confidantes of them. Because you are happy yourself here, Heather, you think I ought to be so too; because you can endure the cursed monotony of such a life, you would keep me bound to the wheel for ever.”
“I think you are a little mistaken,” she answered. “I have been very happy here; I do love Berrie Down very much; but I would leave it to-morrow, and go with you anywhere in the world, if I thought by so doing I could contribute to your comfort, happiness, or prosperity.”
“If you thought,” he repeated. “Ay, there’s just the rub; you never could think so.”
“If you thought that leaving Berrie Down would make you happier, I would do it. I would do anything for you. I have tried to please you, Arthur,” she went on, speaking almost entreatingly. “I have never contradicted your will. I have never put myself in opposition to you. I have never teazed you with questions. I have striven to do my best; but, as you are not satisfied, tell me how I can do better; and it shall not be my fault if I fail. Only, Arthur, only don’t let us drift away from one another; don’t let us begin to have secrets, and treat me as though I had done something to shake your trust and confidence in me.”
Never before had Arthur Dudley seen his wife so moved; never before had he heard such a sentence from her lips. For a moment he felt tempted to tell her all; to make a full and ample confession; to explain to her not merely that his stock was gone, and his crops also, but that he had put his “name” on paper, to an extent which, if the Protector Bread and Flour Company failed to fulfil the hopes of its promoters, would certainly cripple his resources seriously.
Of course his name was only “lent;” but occasionally misgivings would cross his mind that in the event of any hitch occurring, he might be liable for the whole amount of every bill which was at that moment wandering about London, passing from hand to hand.