applied for--and that would have mixed everything up.
And then, too, if anybody suspected anything, why the Stock
Exchange Committee would refuse us a special settlement--and,
of course, without that the whole transaction is moonshine.
It was far too risky, and we didn't send back a penny."

"It's all pretty risky, I should think," she declared
as she rose. "I should think you'd lie awake more than
ever now--now that you've built your hopes so high
and it'd be so awful to have them come to nothing."

He smilingly shook his head. "No, it can no more fail
than that gas can fail to burn when you put a light to it.
It's all absolute. My half-million is as right as if
it were lying to my credit in the Bank of England.
Oh, that reminds me," he went on in a slightly
altered tone--" it's damned comical, but I've got to ask
you for a little money. I've only got about seven
pounds at my bank, and just at the minute it would give
me away fearfully to let Semple know I was hard up.
Of course he'd let me have anything I wanted--but,
you can see--I don't like to ask him just at the moment."

She hesitated visibly, and scanned his face with a
wistful gaze. "You're quite sure, Joel?"--she began--
"and you haven't told me--how long will it be before
you come into some of this money?"

"Well,"--he in turn paused over his words--"well, I suppose
that by next week things will be in such shape that my