eart again, since he really did invite her on.

"Why, of course," she said, "we all know--Farvie and Anne and I--we know
you never did it."

"Did what?"

"Lost all that money. Took it away from people."

The softness of her voice was moving to him. He saw she meant him very
well indeed.

"Lydia," said he, "I lost the money. Don't make any mistake about that."

"Yes, you were a promoter," she reminded him. "You were trying to get
something on the market." She seemed to be assuring him, in an agonised
way, of his own good faith. "And people bought shares. And you took
their money. And--" her voice broke here in a sob of irrepressible
sympathy--"and you lost it."

"Yes," said he patiently. "I found myself in a tight place and the
unexpected happened--the inconceivable. The market went to pieces. And
of course it was at the minute I was asked to account for the funds I
had. I couldn't. So I was a swindler. I was tried. I was sentenced, and
I went to prison. That's all."

"Oh," said Lydia passionately, "but do you suppose we don't know you're
not the only person concerned? Don't you suppose we know there's
somebody else to blame?"

Jeff turned on her a sudden look so like passion of a sort that she
trembled back from him. Why should he be angry with her? Did he stand by
Reardon to that extent?

"What do you mean?" he asked her. "Who's been talking to you?"

"We've all been talking," said Lydia, with a frank simplicity, "Farvie
and Anne and I. Of course we've talked. Especially Anne and I. We knew
you weren't to blame."

Jeff turned away from her and went back into his room. He shut the door,
and yet so quietly that she could not feel reproved. Only she was sad.
The way of being a sister was a harder one than she had looked for. But
she felt bound to him, even by stronger and stronger cords. He was hers,
Farvie's and Anne's and hers, however unlikely he was to take hold of
his innocence with firm hands and shake it in the public face.

Jeff, in his room, stood for a minute or more, hands in his pockets,
staring at the wall and absently thinking he remembered the paper on it
from his college days. But he recalled himself from the obvious. He
looked into his inner chamber of mind where he had forbidden himself to
glance since he had come home, lest he see there a confusion of idea and
desire that should make him the weaker in carrying out the
inevitabilities of his return. There was one thing in decency to be
e