Nothing could be forced, and reflection only tended to confirm those
who opposed the president's views in their opposition to the plan
suggested. The meeting closed, after two hours' perplexing
deliberation, without determining upon any course of action. At ten
o'clock on the next day the directors were to meet again.

Mr. Lawrence walked the floor for half of that night, and lay awake
for the other half. To sleep was impossible. Thus far, in the many
difficulties he had encountered, a way of escape from them had
opened either on the right hand or on the left, but now no way of
escape presented itself. A hundred plans were suggested to his mind,
canvassed and then put aside. He saw but one measure of relief, if
it could be carried out; but that he had proposed already, and it
was not approved.

The unhappy state in which she saw her husband deeply distressed
Mrs. Lawrence. Earnestly did she beg of him to tell her all that
troubled him, and let her bear a part of the burden that was upon
him. At first he evaded her questions; but, to her oft-repeated and
tenderly urged petition to be a sharer in his pains as well as his
pleasures, he mentioned the desperate state of affairs in the
company of which he was president.

"But, my dear husband," she replied to this, "you cannot be held
responsible for the losses the institution has sustained."

"True, Florence; but the odium, the censure, the distress that must
follow its failure,--I cannot bear to think of these. My credit,
too, will suffer, for I shall lose all I have invested in the stock,
and this fact, when known, will impair confidence."