as Sylvia
claimed his attention, he forgot about it, and there was so much to see
and to hear, with so many details of to-morrow's journey to discuss,
that it is not wonderful he did not even remember Nealie had said she
was tired.

Later in the evening, when they were back at the hotel, the younger
ones had gone to bed, and Mr. Wallis had gone away after bidding them a
most affectionate good night, Nealie said abruptly: "There is something
you ought to know, Rupert, that I have always hated to tell you."

"Then don't tell it," put in Sylvia lazily. "I think that half the
misery of the world comes through having to do unpleasant things, such
as going to bed when you want to sit up, and in having to get up by
candlelight on a dark morning in winter when you would far rather take
your breakfast in bed."

"What is it? A trouble of some sort?" asked Rupert, with a start, for he
was remembering Nealie's low spirits at teatime and wondering where the
trouble came in.

"Yes," said Nealie shortly, and then hesitated as if not sure where to
begin.

"Well, you can enjoy it together, if it must be told, but I am going to
bed, for it seems to me almost like a sacrilege to spoil such a
beautiful day as this has been with even a hint of anything unpleasant,"
said Sylvia, getting out of her easy chair in a great hurry. Then she
said in quite a pathetic tone, as she kissed Rupert: "I wonder when we
shall have easy chairs to sit in again; don't you?"

"I don't see that it matters very much; I am not gone on that sort of
thing myself," he replied briefly; and then he turned to Nealie, asking
in a tone of grave concern, as Sylvia hurried away to bed: "Is it
anything about Father, Nealie?"

"Yes," she said faintly. "That is to say, it is about the trouble that
came before Ducky was born; you remember it?"

"I never knew more about it than that he made a mistake, some medical
blunder, for which he would have to live more or less under a cloud for
the remainder of his professional life. I thought it was all that any of
us knew, and Aunt Judith hated to have it mentioned." Rupert's tone was
fairly aggressive now, for he was quite abnormally sensitive on this
subject of his father's disgrace, which had indirectly cost his mother
her life and had plunged the family into poverty, and bereft them of
their father also.

"Mrs. Puffin told me all about it one day soon after Aunt Judith was
taken ill," said Nealie, her voice quivering no