alone."

"You have not told me what they are," said Deb, who saw that he was in
dread of her going before he could do so.

"Oh, debts--debts--debts!" he answered, with a reckless air. "The
millstone that we hung about our necks when we anticipated that she
would have money, and lived accordingly, and were then left stranded.
The eternal trying to make a shilling go as far as a pound--to make
bricks without straw, like the captive Israelites of old. But
why do you ask me? I hate to talk about it." He made a gesture of
putting the miserable subject aside.

"It was very hard on you," Deb said gently--contradicting the Deb of
an earlier time and different state of things--"to have those
expectations, which were certainly justified, and to be disappointed as
you were. I feel that we Pennycuicks were to blame in that--"

"Oh, dear, no!" he earnestly assured her.

"And that an obligation rests on me, now that I have the means, to make
some compensation to you--to Mary, rather."

"It is like you to think of that. But really--"

"And I put a blank cheque in my pocket, and a stylographic pen--and
will you let me"--she drew forth the articles mentioned, and made a
desk of the top rail of the gate--"will you do me the favour to accept
from me--what shall I say?--five hundred pounds? Would that relieve
you--and Mary--of the immediate worries?"