“Well?”

“Attend to me, if you please.” He eyed her sternly until she did attend, and then went on. “I want to take counsel with you. Come, come; no more trifling. You know our league and covenant. We are to work together for our joint interest, and you are as knowing a hand as I am. We shouldn’t be together, if you were not. What’s to be done? We are hemmed into a corner. What shall we do?”

“Have you no scheme on foot that will bring in anything?”

Mr. Lammle plunged into his whiskers for reflection, and came out hopeless: “No; as adventurers we are obliged to play rash games for chances of high winnings, and there has been a run of luck against us.”

She was resuming, “Have you nothing⁠—” when he stopped her.

“We, Sophronia. We, we, we.”