t
have told her--"

"He told her a barrel of lies, of course. What they were I can't
imagine, but that fellow was capable of anything. Know! No, she doesn't
know now, but she will have to know."

"Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?"

I stared in amazement.

"Tell her!" I repeated. "What do you mean? You don't intend letting her
think that WE are the thieves, do you? That's what she thinks now. Of
course I shall tell her."

"It will be awful hard to tell. She worshipped her father, I guess. He
was a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be. He could make a
body believe black was white. Poor Ardelia thought he was--"

"I can't help that. I'm not Ardelia."

"I know, but she is Ardelia's child. Hosy, if you are so set on tellin'
her why didn't you tell her this afternoon? It would have been just as
easy then as to-morrow."

This was a staggerer. A truthful answer would be so humiliating. I had
not told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a liar because I
couldn't muster courage to do it. She had seemed so alone and friendless
and ill. I lacked the pluck to face the situation. But I could not tell
Hephzy this.

"Why didn't you tell her?" she repeated.

"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed, impatiently. "This is nonsense and you know it,
Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look
at me like that. What else are we to do?"

Another shake of the head.

"I don't know. I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy. What do YOU
think we should do?"

"I don't know."

With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I
went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was
not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I
mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during
the better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be
in Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I
could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's "heir"
what to do.

Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all. From behind the door of her
room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could
not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning,
at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know
what George, the waiter, thought of us.

At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which I
had been moodily regardin