"Well, Laura, what was it that you just thought? I can't stand here talking all the time. It isn't right, it isn't proper. I'm worn out!"
"Of course it isn't, John. I'm going right away. But you see, when I came away I just thought this way--here am I, an old woman that don't need much money any more. And there's Grace;--and maybe now John has need for money when everybody's turned against him. And if he does need money, why--"
"What do you mean, Laura?" gasped John Rawn. "What's that you said about _money_?"
"How much would do you any good, John?" she asked, fumbling in her bulging hand-bag.
"I might as well wish for the moon as for a dollar," he said bitterly. "If I had a million, or a half million, to-morrow, I'd pull it all together, even yet."
"A half million, John?" she said, taking out of her bag a little, wrinkled, flat _porte-monnaie_ such as women sometimes use for carrying change in their marketing; but still continuing her fumbling at the portly bag.
"Yes, if I had a half million I could put this company on its feet, even yet--the secret's out that Halsey had,--but I'd get it somewhere. I more than half believe those fellows _have_ got it, somewhere else, somehow--that fellow Van's deep. You see, they've been fighting me, Laura--made up a gang against me! I know who it was. If I had a half million I'd throw in with Van--he's got this secret somehow--he knows something about it. I'd throw in with him, and we'd whip the others, even yet! I'd get it all back in my hands even yet, I tell you!
"But my God! Why do I stand talking about such things? What's the use? I'm down and out! I'd just as well be dead!"
"Well, John, what I always said of you was, that you seemed to know how to get things around the way you wanted them. I said to myself, what a shame it was he should have no money, when he needed it, and I should have so much when I didn't need it. I've got enough set aside to keep me, I reckon, for my few years. And here's what you gave me;--although, Grace--of course, John, I want enough used to put Grace and the baby away. The rest is yours."
He stood looking at her dumbly, as at last she extricated from the bag a thick bundle of folded papers, green, brown, pale pink.
