Her face was flushed in the darkness, and her eyes full of tears, but he could not see that; perhaps he detected it in her tone, for his changed instantly.
"But I have no right to bother you with all this wretched business, or to keep you out here in the cold," for they were standing now by the little gate. "Good night, Miss Marriott. I know you are sorry for us, but we must not burthen other people with our troubles."
"But I like to be burthened. You must not treat me as a stranger," she replied, putting her hand in his. "If I do not say much about all this it is because I am so very sorry, and I do not know how to comfort you; but, all the same, I believe something will turn up."
"Let us hope so," he returned, with a pretence at cheerfulness, and then he left her and went back to the house.
He had made no unmanly moan over his misfortunes, but his heart was sick within him as he thought of the future. He had lost his money and perhaps his home, and must he lose this sweet new hope that had come to him? If he were a poor man could he ever dare to trammel himself with a wife? and the thought of shutting out this new-found happiness was very bitter to him.
"There is enough to bear without thinking of that to-night," he said to himself, with a sort of shudder, as he shut himself up in his solitary room; but, all the same, Queenie's soft words haunted him with strange persistence.
He would have marvelled greatly if he could have heard what she whispered as he left her.
"Oh, how ungrateful I have been, how utterly foolish. I can thank heaven now that I have five thousand a-year."