I. A. R. Wylie

“ Man, you can't do it! Think of her—brought up as she has been—roughing it, suffering as only a gently nurtured woman can suffer. She is ill already. Don't you see that?”
Fenton lifted his heavy eyes to his friend's face.
“I see that something is wrong,” he said. “Perhaps it's been there all along and I have not known it. I can't tell. I only that Eileen has changed. She shrinks from me. For a moment to-day I thought—you'll think me mad—she seemed to hate me. It's as if her father's unreasoning distrust of me had crept into her blood. Delisle, you know her—perhaps better than I do. ”

“ I was expecting Eileen I didn't want her to find me—well, like this. Sit down. It's good to see you. You're the only man I could bear to see just now.”
“Are things as bad as all that?'
“They're as bad as they can be.” He was silent a moment, gazing down at the massed bundles of papers before him as if they absorbed his atention; in reality fighting for a semblance of indifference. “You know how it is,” he went on levelly. “There's nothing left but a mass of debts. Sir Richard had no idea of money. ”

“ Friendship can go too far; it can become Quixotic—ridiculous. One must do what one can in one's own way.” He seemed to be arguing, but not with her. She looked at him dazedly, and suddenly his hand rested on hers and held it. “I won't do it, Eileen. I'll help you—I promise you.”
The door at the far end of the corridor opened and closed. The lawyer came slowly, with head bent, toward the stairs. Delisle drew himself up. The strained eagerness passed from his features, leaving him calm and even indifferent.
“I'll go along and have a look at Fenton,” he said casually. ”