oughtfully out of
the window. "He's in a very hard place," she began abruptly, and then
stopped as though she had thought better of what she intended to say.
Helen tried to ask her to go on, but could not bring herself to do so.
She wanted to get away.

"I tell him he ought to leave London," Marion began again; "he needs a
change and a rest."

"I should think he might," Helen agreed, "after three months of this
heat. He wrote me he intended going to Herne Bay or over to Ostend."

"Yes, he had meant to go," Marion answered. She spoke with the air of
one who possessed the most intimate knowledge of Carroll's movements and
plans, and change of plans. "But he couldn't," she added. "He couldn't
afford it. Helen," she said, turning to the other girl, dramatically,
"do you know--I believe that Philip is very poor."

Miss Cabot exclaimed incredulously, "Poor!" She laughed. "Why, what do
you mean?"

"I mean that he has no money," Marion answered, sharply. "These rooms
represent nothing. He only keeps them on because he paid for them in
advance. He's been living on three shillings a day. That's poor for him.
He takes his meals at cabmen's shelters and at Lockhart's, and he's been
doing so for a month."

Helen recalled with a guilty thrill the receipt of certain boxes of
La France roses--cut long, in the American fashion--which had arrived
within the last month at various country houses. She felt indignant
at herself, and miserable. Her indignation was largely due to the
recollection that she had given these flowers to her hostess to decorate
the dinner-table.

She hated to ask this girl of things which she should have known better
than any one else. But she forced herself to do it. She felt she must
know certainly and at once.

"How do you know this?" she asked. "Are you sure there is no mistake?"

"He told me himself," said Marion, "when he talked of letting the plays
go and returning to America. He said he must go back; that his money was
gone."

"He is gone to America!" Helen said, blankly.

"No, he wanted to go, but I wouldn't let him," Marion went on. "I told
him that some one might take his play any day. And this third one he has
written, the one he finished this summer in town, is the best of all, I
think. It's a love-story. It's quite beautiful." She turned and
arranged her veil at the glass, and as she did so, her eyes fell on the
photographs of herself scattered over the mantelpiece, and she smiled
slight