"Well, there; I will if I must; but, Mark, do not frighten me. Why is
your face so very wretched?"
"Fanny, I have done very wrong," he said. "I have been very foolish.
I fear that I have brought upon you great sorrow and trouble." And
then he leaned his head upon his hand and turned his face away from
her.
"Oh, Mark, dearest Mark, my own Mark! what is it?" and then she was
quickly up from her chair, and went down on her knees before him. "Do
not turn from me. Tell me, Mark! tell me, that we may share it."
"Yes, Fanny, I must tell you now; but I hardly know what you will
think of me when you have heard it."
"I will think that you are my own husband, Mark; I will think
that--that chiefly, whatever it may be." And then she caressed his
knees, and looked up in his face, and, getting hold of one of his
hands, pressed it between her own. "Even if you have been foolish,
who should forgive you if I cannot?" And then he told it her all,
beginning from that evening when Mr. Sowerby had got him into his
bedroom, and going on gradually, now about the bills, and now about
the horses, till his poor wife was utterly lost in the complexity of
the accounts. She could by no means follow him in the details of his
story; nor could she quite sympathize with him in his indignation
against Mr.
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