e door, Mrs. Carre came in with
brilliant lobsters and crisp lettuces for lunch, and, hungry as they
all were, their souls loathed the thought of eating.

"They are just out of the pot," beamed she, "and the lettuces were
growing not five min'ts ago. Ech!"--at sight of Pixley--"is he ill?"

"Mr. Pixley has just had bad news from home, Mrs. Carre," said Graeme.
"He will have to go by to-day's boat."

"Ach, but I am sorry! And him so happy yesterday and dancing the best
in the room," and her pleasant face clouded sympathetically.

"Meg, I'll go up to your room for a minute and finish my hair," said
Hennie Penny. "I ran out just as I was--"

"It was very kind of you," said Charles Svendt, and the general
sympathy seemed to comfort him somewhat.

"No good feeling too bad about it, old man, till you know all the
facts," said Graeme, when the girls had gone off upstairs.

"It hits me, Graeme. Not financially, as I said. But in every other
way it hits me hard.--Have you reached the point of seeing that it may
hit her too?"--and he nodded towards upstairs.

"I suppose there was a glimmering idea of the chance of that at the
back of my head somewhere, but we won't trouble about it just now. How
about your mother?"

Pixley shook his head dismally again. "It will be a terrible blow to
her. He was a bit hard and cold at home, you know, but she looked up
to him as immaculate. Yes, it will hit her very hard. As to money, of
course, she will be all right. I have plenty. But the talk and the
scandal--" and he groaned again at thought of it all.

"Send her over here for a time--or bring her yourself. We have heaps
of room here. Miss Penny is coming to stop with us next week. Your
mother was always fond of Margaret, I believe."

"She was--very fond of her.... That's a good thought of yours, Graeme.
Are you sure Margaret--?"

"Of course she would. She and Miss Penny will just take care of her,
and no word of the troubles will reach her. That's the thing to do,
and maybe you'll find things not as bad as you expect when you get
back."

But, from the look of him, Charles Svendt had small hope of matters
being anything but what he feared.

When the girls came down they made an apology of a meal, for, in spite
of their hunger, the stricken look of their friend took their
appetites away.

The thought that there might still lurk in their minds a suspicion
that he had had some knowledge of his father's position, when he came