"Spolger won't do anything. Five! six! No! he's too selfish, and unless the marriage takes place I can expect no help from him--fourteen squares from that wall. All those bills are due in three months, and unless I can meet them there is nothing left but bankruptcy. I'll count back again. One! two! three! So the house of Marson & Sons must go down after all, and Florry, poor child, how ill she is! I'm afraid she will not recover. Ten! ten! Ah, if I only had ten thousand, that would help me. Twenty, twenty-one! How my head aches! Who's that? Come in, Judith!"
It was indeed Judith who stood on the threshold of the room, looking pale and ghost-like in her white dressing-gown, with her long black hair loose over her shoulders. She held a candle in her hand, and the yellow light flared on her strongly marked features, ivory white under the shadow of her hair.
Francis Marson stood by his writing-table in the circle of light which welled from under the green shade of the lamp, but he made a step forward as Judith entered slowly and closed the door after her with great care.
"Is Florry worse?" asked Marson, with a look of despair on his haggard features.
"No! just the same," replied Judith, placing the candle on the table and sinking into a chair. "Dr. Japix says she will be like she is now for some time--until the crisis comes."
"I don't know," she said, in a monotonous voice; "it means either madness or sanity."
"Yes, I think so," answered Judith, with terrible calmness. "Poor Florry, she was so bright and happy a few days ago, and now her life is spoilt; she will never be the same again."
There was silence for a few moments, and Marson sank slowly into his chair, shading his worn face with his thin left hand, while the other mechanically busied itself with two pens lying on the table. Judith, with her hands lying loosely clasped on her lap, stared straight in front of her with a thoughtful expression, as if she was engaged in solving some abstruse problem.
Only the steady ticking of the clock, the subdued crackling of the dying fire, and shadows everywhere! In the corners of the room, overhead on the ceiling, where the bright glare of the study lamp made an unsteady circle, on the faces of the man and woman--shadows everywhere, and, darkest of all, the shadow intangible, unseen, the shadow of horror, of guilt, of disgrace that hung over the whole splendid mansion!