cularly after you; and when I told him you were coming
home he said that he should try and manage to come over and see you. But
he is evidently beginning to be rather important, and he can't get away
very easily. He asked a good many questions about you, and wanted to know
if I thought you were happy and well."

"I see." Again the absence of interest in Phyllis's tone was so marked as
to be almost unnatural.

Molly dismissed the subject with a far better executed air of
indifference.

"And you are really going to marry Earl Wyverton," she said. "How nice,
Phyl! Did he make love to you?"

There was a distinct pause before Phyllis replied. "No. There was no
need."

"He didn't!" ejaculated Molly.

"I didn't encourage him to," Phyllis confessed. "He went away directly
after. He said he should come to-morrow and see dad."

"I suppose he's frightfully rich?" said Molly, reflectively.

"Enormously, I believe." A deep red flush rose in Phyllis's face. She had
begun to tremble again in spite of herself. Molly suddenly dropped her
work and leaned forward.

"Phyl, Phyl," she said, softly; "shall I tell you what Jim Freeman said
to me that day? He said that very soon he should be able to support a
wife--and I knew quite well what he meant. I told him I was glad--so
glad. Oh, Phyl, darling, when he comes and asks you to go to him, what
will you say?"

Phyllis looked up with quick protest on her lips. She wrung her hands
together with a despairing gesture.

"Molly, Molly," she gasped, "don't torture me! How can I help it? How can
I help it? I shall have to send him away."

"Oh, poor darling!" Molly said. "Poor, poor darling!"

And she gathered her sister into her arms, pressing her close to her
heart with a passionate fondness of which only a few knew her to be
capable. There was only a year between them, and Molly had always been
the leading spirit, protector and comforter by turns.

Even as she soothed and hushed Phyllis into calmness her quick brain was
at work upon the situation. There must be a way of escape somewhere. Of
that she was convinced. There always was a way of escape. But for the
time at least it baffled her. Her own acquaintance with Wyverton was very
slight. She wished ardently that she knew what manner of man he was at
heart.

Upon one point at least she was firmly determined. This monstrous
sacrifice must not take place, even were it to ensure the whole family
welfare. The life they lived was d