"'Robert!' she said, involuntarily raising her hands and clasping them.
"Ah, if I had met her appeal! If I had said: 'Do not go by this train; I will confess everything to you!' But the prompting did not come to me; if it had, I should have disregarded it.
"'I cannot come with you, Clair,' I said; 'I have such a deal to do before I leave London.'
"'Poor papa!' she said. 'That is why you keep out so late at night. Poor papa!'
"My wife turned her head from us, but I saw the scarlet blush on her face, which I attributed to her displeasure at my refusal. Or was it that she suspected my secret?
"'You have not betrayed me?' I said apart to my friend. 'She does not know how I have lost my fortune, and what has brought me to this?'
"'On my honor, no,' he answered. 'She has not the least suspicion of your stupid infatuation.'
"'You will not call it stupid in three or four weeks,' I said.
"'It is not possible for your system to fail?' he questioned.
"'There isn't the remotest possibility of it,' I replied. 'Clever people think that everything has been found out about figures and chances. I am going to show them something new.'
"The whistle sounded; the guard bade the passengers take their places. I walked along the platform as the train moved away. Clair waved her handkerchief to me; my friend nodded good-by; my wife did not raise her head to look at me.
"I hastened back to my house, and found the broker there. He was a wealthy dealer, and was going through the rooms when I entered, appraising everything and putting down figures. I accompanied him from one room to another, and we smoked as he made his calculations. I was impatient and unhappy, but he would not be hurried. He opened the door of my wife's morning-room; I pulled him back.
"There were some small things in the room which seemed to me to have so close a personal relation to my wife that I was angry to see him handle them. Why had she not taken these things away with her? She might have spared me the reproach. I walked out of the room while he valued them.
"'You want the money immediately?' he asked.
"'That will make a slight difference,' he said, and he named the amount he was willing to give me. It was less than I anticipated, but the business worried me, and I agreed. Saying he would return in an hour and complete the bargain, he left me.