the room.

"Now, you can do just what you think wise," he resumed presently, in
the advisory, quiet tones he usually used to her. "You can always have
the income of your Park Avenue house; your Aunt Paul will be glad
enough to go abroad with you, and there are personal things--the house
silver and the books--that you can claim. I've lain awake nights
planning--" His voice shook again, but he gained his calm after a
moment. "I want to ask you not to work yourself up over it," he added.

There was a silence. Margaret regarded him in stony fury. She was
deadly white.

"Do you mean that Throckmorton, Kirby, & Son have--has failed?" she
asked. "Do you mean that my money--the money that my father left me--is
GONE? Does Mr. Bannister say so? Why--why has it never occurred to you
to warn me?"

"I did warn you. I did try to tell you, in July--why, all the world
knew how things were going!"

If, on the last word, there crept into his voice the plea that even a
strong man makes to his women for sympathy, for solace, Margaret's eyes
killed it. John, turning to go, gave her what consolation he could.

"Margaret, I can only say I'm sorry. I tried--Bannister knows how I
tried to hold my own. But I was pretty young when your father died, and
there was no one to help me learn. I'm glad it doesn't mean actual
suffering for you. Some day, perhaps, we'll get some of it back. God
knows I hope so. I've not meant much to you. Your marriage has cost you
pretty dear. But I'm going to do the only thing I can for you."

Silence followed. Margaret presently roused herself.

"I suppose this can be kept from the papers? We needn't be discussed
and pointed at in the streets?" she asked heavily, her face a mask of
distaste.

"That's impossible," said John, briefly.

"To some people nothing is impossible," Margaret said.

Her husband turned again without a word, and left her. Afterward she
remembered the sick misery in his eyes, the whiteness of his face.

What did she do then? She didn't know. Did she go at once to the
dressing-table? Did she ring for Louise, or was she alone as she slowly
got herself into a loose wrapper and unpinned her hair?

How long was it before she heard that horrible cry in the hall? What
was it--that, or the voices and the flying footsteps, that brought her,
shaken and gasping, to her feet?

She never knew. She only knew that she was in John's dressing-room, and
that the servants were clustered, a sobbing, t