of a nightmare."

Mary dared not stop to think. She took the plunge.

"There's something about father you've got to be told. I promised Wallace
Hood weeks ago that I'd tell you. I guess he and Martin Whitney think you
know about it by now."

"Something I've got to be told about John?" Paula echoed incredulously.
"Why, I was talking with him over the telephone not ten minutes before
you came in."

"Oh, I know. It's nothing like that," Mary said. "But they say he has
tuberculosis. Not desperately, not so that he can't get well if he takes
care of it. If he lives out-of-doors and doesn't worry or try to work.
But if he takes up his practise again this fall, they say,--Doctor
Steinmetz says,--that it will be--committing suicide. That's one thing.
And the other is that he's practically bankrupt. Anyhow, that for a year
or two, until he can get back into practise, he'll need help. That's why
Wallace and Mr. Whitney wanted you told about it."

There hadn't been a movement nor a sound from Paula. Mary, at the end of
that speech was breathless and rather frightened.

Finally Paula asked, "Does he know about it?--his health I mean."

"He's been told," Mary answered, "but he doesn't believe it. They nearly
always are skeptical, Doctor Steinmetz says."

"He's probably right to be. He's a better doctor than six of Steinmetz
will ever be."

Another pause; then, once more from Paula, "Did he tell you about the
other thing,--about his money troubles,--when you were down in North
Carolina with him?"

Mary flushed at the hostile ring there was to that. "He told me a
little," she said, "but not much more, I thought, than he had already
told you."

"Told me?" Paula swung herself off the bed and on to her feet in one
movement. "He told me nothing."

"He urged you to carry out your Ravinia contract, didn't he?" Mary asked,
as steadily as she could.

Paula stood over her staring. "Oh," she exclaimed, and, a moment later
she repeated the ejaculation in a drier tone and with a downward
inflection. She added presently, "I'm not clever the way you are at
taking hints. That's the thing it will be just as well for you both to
remember." She began bruskly putting on her dressing-gown. "I'm going
down-stairs to telephone to Max," she explained. "He's got the paper all
drawn up, not the final contract but an agreement to sign one of the sort
I told you about. I'm going to tell him that if he will bring it back
with him now, I'll sign