This was most unusual. Mrs. Chichester was not wont to give vent to
open emotion. It shows a lack of breeding. So she always suppressed it.
It seemed to grow inwards. To find her weeping--and almost
audibly--impressed Alaric that something of more than usual importance
had occurred.

"Hello, Mater!" he cried cheerfully, though his looks belied the
buoyancy of his tone. "Hullo! what's the matter? What's up?"

At the same moment Ethel came in through the door.

It was 11:30, and at precisely that time every morning Ethel practised
for half an hour on the piano. Not that she had the slightest interest
in music, but it helped the morning so much. She would look forward to
it for an hour before, and think of it for an hour afterwards--and then
it was lunch-time. It practically filled out the entire morning.

Mrs. Chichester looked up as her beloved children came toward her--and
REAL tears were in her eyes, and a REAL note of alarm was in her voice:

"Oh Ethel! Oh Alaric!"

Alaric was at her side in a moment. He was genuinely alarmed.

Ethel moved slowly across, thinking, vaguely, that something must have
disagreed with her mother.

"What is it, mater?" cried Alaric.

"Mother!" said Ethel, with as nearly a tone of emotion as she could
feel.

"We're ruined!" sobbed Mrs. Chichester.

"Nonsense!" said the bewildered son.

"Really?" asked the placid daughter.

"Our bank has failed! Every penny your poor father left me was in it,"
wailed Mrs. Chichester. "We've nothing. Nothing. We're beggars."

A horrible fear for a moment gripped Alaric--the dread of poverty. He
shivered! Suppose such a thing should really happen? Then he dismissed
it with a shrug of his shoulders. How perfectly absurd! Poverty,
indeed! The Chichesters beggars? Such nonsense! He turned to his mother
and found her holding out a letter and a newspaper. He took them both
and read them with mingled amazement and disgust. First the headline of
the newspaper caught his eye:

"Failure of Gifford's Bank."

Then he looked at the letter:

"Gifford's Bank suspended business yesterday!" Back his eye travelled
to the paper: "Gifford's Bank has closed its doors!" He was quite
unable, at first, to grasp the full significance of the contents of
that letter and newspaper. He turned to Ethel:

"Eh?" he gasped.

"Pity," she murmured, trying to find a particular piece of music
amongst the mass on the piano.

"We're ruined!" reiterated Mrs. Chichester.