“Who did it?” she asked.

“Samuel Rubb.”

He then went on to declare that she might accept all Samuel Rubb’s figures as correct.

She was quite willing to accept them, and she strove hard to understand them. It certainly did seem to her that when her money was borrowed somebody must have known that the promised security would not be forthcoming; but perhaps that somebody was old Rubb, whom, as she did not know him, she was quite ready to regard as the villain in the play that was being acted. Her own money, too, was a thing of the past. That fault, if fault there had been, was condoned; and she was angry with herself in that she now thought of it again.

“And now,” said her brother, as soon as she had put the papers back, and declared that she understood them. “Now I have something to say to you which I hope you will hear without being angry.” He raised himself on his bed as he said this, doing so with difficulty and pain, and turning his face upon her so that he could look into her eyes. “If I didn’t know that I was dying I don’t think that I could say it to you.”

“Say what, Tom?”

She thought of what most terrible thing it might be possible that he should have to communicate. Could it be that he had got hold, or that Rubb and Mackenzie had got hold, of all her fortune, and turned it into unprofitable oilcloth? Could they in any way have made her responsible for their engagements? She wished to trust them; she tried to avoid suspicion; but she feared that things were amiss.

“Samuel Rubb and I have been talking of it, and he thinks it had better come from me,” said her brother.

“What had better come?” she asked.

“It is his proposition, Margaret.” Then she knew all about it, and felt great relief. Then she knew all about it, and let him go on till he had spoken his speech.

“God knows how far he may be indulging a false hope, or deceiving himself altogether; but he thinks it possible that you might—might become fond of him. There, Margaret, that’s the long and the short of it. And when I told him that he had better say that himself, he declared that you would not bring yourself to listen to him while I am lying here dying.”

“Of course I would not.”

“But, look here, Margaret; I know you would do much to comfort me in my last moments.”

“Indeed, I would, Tom.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to marry a man you didn’t like,—not even if it were to do the children a service; but if that can be got over, the other feeling should not restrain you when it would be the greatest possible comfort to me.”

“But how could it serve you, Tom?”

“If that could be arranged, Rubb would give up to Sarah during his father’s life all the proceeds of the business, after paying the old man. And when he dies, and he is very old now, the five hundred a-year would be continued to her. Think what that would be, Margaret.”