Our hands are tied. If you refuse it, people would wonder."

"Yes--yes. But, Will, you keep saying _you_, when it's really us. It will be _ours_, not just only mine, you must remember."

"Ah, but I doubt if I could ever take you at your word, there."

After this she sang at her household work. She took as a good sign the fact that he had spoken doubtfully, instead of formally repudiating her suggestion that they were to share alike in all the good things which the money might bring them. She thought it must mean that he was very near to forgiving her. Death had now almost wiped out _everything_. He was feeling more and more every day what she had felt from the beginning, that it was palpably absurd to go on harboring resentment.

Free now from exaggerated estimates, with ideas readjusted to the measure of reality, and her natural common sense at work again, she thought of what the little fortune might truly do for them. It ought to yield a hundred pounds, twice fifty pounds a year--roughly two pounds a week coming in unearned. Why, it _was wealth_. On top of William's annual emoluments such an income would make them feel as if they were rolling in money.

Visions immediately arose of all sorts of things that would now be within the scope of their means--choicer meals for William, ap.r.o.ns and caps for Mary, new curtains and much else new and delightful to beautify the home. Little excursions too--a regular seaside holiday during leave-time!

Messrs. Cleaver had intimated that the London solicitors were ready to hand over the money, and Mavis was talking to her husband about its investment.

"I trust your judgment, Will--and I'd like it put in both our names."

"Oh, no, I couldn't quite consent to that."

"I do wish you would. If it's invested well, I make out it ought to bring us a hundred a year."

"Mavis," he said, thoughtfully, "it might be invested to bring more than that, if you were prepared to take a certain amount of risk."

"Oh, I don't want any risk."

"An' p'raps the risk, after all, would be covered by the security I'd offer you. That'd be for your lawyers to decide; it's not for me to urge the safety."

"Will, what is it?"

"I hesitate for this purpose. I want to lead you up to it, so that you shouldn't turn against the proposal without yourself or your representatives giving it consideration."

"Will, I wish you'd tell me--I can't bear suspense."

"Then here's the first question. If satisfied of the security, would you lend out the money on mortgage with a person who has the chance of setting up himself in an old-established business?"

"What business?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Take the person first. You haven't asked about _him_. In a sense, his character--honesty and straight ways--is a part of the security. He is somebody you've known for a many years."

"Who is it?"

"Myself."

"Will? What on earth do you mean?"

"Mavis, it's like this--There, bide a bit."

They had been sitting in the dusk after their high tea; and now Mary brought a lighted lamp into the room, and put it on the table between them.

"All right, my girl. Never mind clearing away till I call for you."

He waited until Mary had gone out of the room, and then went on talking. His face with the lamp-light full upon it looked very firm and serious, and his manner while he explained all these new ideas was strangely unemotional. He spoke not in the style of a husband to a wife, but of a business man proposing a partnership to another man.

"It seems to me, viewing it all round, a wonderful good chance. An opening that isn't likely to come in one's way twice. Mr. Bates' son has bin and got himself into such a mess over a horse-racing transaction that he's had to make a bolt of it. I can't tell you the facts, because I don't rightly know them; but it's bad--something to do with checks that'll put him to hidin' for a long day, if he doesn't want to answer for it in a court o' law. Well, then, the old gentleman being worn out with private care, wishful to retire, and seeing a common cheat and waster in the one who ought by nature to succeed him, has offered me to take over the farm, the trade, an' the whole bag of tricks."

"But, surely to goodness, Will, you don't think of giving up the post office?"

"Yes, I do. I think of that, in any case."

"But you love the work."

"Used to, Mavis."

"Don't you now?"

"No. Mavis, it's like this." He had raised a hand to shade his eyes, as if the lamplight hurt them, and she could no longer see the expression of his face. But she observed a sudden change in his manner. He spoke now much in the same confidential tone that he had always employed in the old time when telling her of his most intimate affairs--in the happy time when he brought all his little troubles to her, and flattered her by saying that she never failed to make them easy to bear. "So far's the P.O. is concerned, all the heart has gone out of me. The events through which I've pa.s.sed have altered my view of the entire affair. Where all seemed leading me on and on, and up and up, I see nothing before me now."

"Promotion!"

"I don't b'lieve I'd ever get it. The best I could hope for'd be that they'd leave me here to th' end o' my service life. And besides, if promotion comes tomorrow, I don't want it."

"Will, let me say it at once. Take the money. I consent. Whatever you feel's best for you, that's what I want."

He altogether ignored her interruption, and went on in the same tone.

"I used to think it grand, and now it all seems nothing. I do a.s.sure you when I was down there handing out a halfpenny stamp or signing a two-shilling order, I used to feel large enough to burst with satisfaction. I felt 'I'm the king o' the castle.'--That was thrown in my teeth as how I appeared to others. Well, now, I feel like a brock in a barrel--or not so big as him. Just something small that's got into the wrong box by accident, and had the lid clapped to on it. I want room for my elbows, an' scope for my int'lect. I must get the sky over my head again, and the open roads under my feet. If I stopped down there much longer, I should go mad."

"Then, my dear, you mustn't stop."

"These last weeks--fairly determined to chuck it--I bin thinking o'

the Colonies as affording advantages to any man who's got capacities in him; but now this chance comes nearer home, and it lies with you to say if you'll give me the help required for me to take it."

"Yes," said Mavis, earnestly, "and more glad than words can say to think I'm able to do so."

Indeed she was delighted. She had been deeply moved by all he told her about his distaste for the work he used to love, and she recognized that he had been magnanimous in refraining from reproaches, but rather implying a purely personal change of ideas as to the cause of disillusionment and depression. So that, jumping at the opportunity to prove that she counted his inclinations as higher than mere money, she would have accepted any scheme, however unpromising; but in fact the enterprise appeared to her judgment as quite gloriously hopeful. Every moment increased the charms that it presented; above all, its complete novelty fascinated, and with surprising quickness she found herself thinking almost exactly what her husband had thought in regard to their present existence. It seemed to her too that she was pining for a larger, freer environment, that this narrow home had become a permanent prison-house, and that she could never really be contented until she got away from it; then she thought of Vine-Pits Farm, the peaceful fields, the lovely woodland, the s.p.a.ce, the air, the sunlight that one would enjoy out there; and then in another moment came the fear lest all this should prove too good to be true.

"But, Will, however can Mr. Bates be willing to part with such a splendid business as his for no more than two thousand pounds?"

"Ah, there you show your sense, Mavis." As he said this Dale took his hand from his forehead, and resumed his entirely matter-of-fact tone.

"You must understand things aren't always what they seem. The business is not what it was."

"But Mr. Bates is very rich, isn't he?"

"He _ought_ to be, but he isn't. That son of his has bin eating him up, slow an' fast, for th' last ten years. The turnover of his trade is big enough, but the whole management of it has gone end-ways. From a man working with capital he's come down to a man financing things from hand to mouth. What's left to him now is strictly speaking his stock, his wagons, his horses, his lease, his household belongings--and whatever should be put down for the good-will."

Then, continuing his purely businesslike exposition, he explained that he would have to make two engagements, one to his wife and one to Mr.

Bates. All material property would be charged with Mavis' loan, and the value of the good-will would be repaid how and when he could repay it. Mr. Bates was content to risk that part of the bargain on his faith in Dale's personal integrity.

"Don't say any more," cried Mavis. "I'm not understanding it, but I know it's all right. Do let's get it settled before Mr. Bates alters his mind."

"It must be done formally, Mavis, through your lawyers. Mr. Cleaver is capable and trustworthy. It's to be a regular mortgage, properly tied up; and he must approve--"