ng-room, he noticed that she looked
pale and careworn, and her limpid, childlike eyes were veiled
pathetically with deep, blue shadows. As he looked at her, however, a
warm tint dyed her cheeks and her head drooped, while the little smile
still lingered about her lips.

"You are tired?" he found himself asking solicitously, after she had
expressed her sympathy for his supposed ill fortune. "You found your
work difficult to-day at the club?"

"Oh, no,"--she shook her head slowly. "My position is a mere sinecure,
thanks to Miss Lawton's wonderful consideration. I have been a little
depressed--a little worried, that is all."

"Worried?" Morrow paused, then added in a lower tone, the words coming
swiftly, "Can't you tell me, Emily? Isn't there some way in which I
can help you? What is it that is troubling you?"

"I--I don't know." A deeper, painful flush spread for a moment over
her face, then ebbed, leaving her paler even than before. "You are
very kind, Mr. Morrow, but I do not think that I should speak of it to
anyone. And indeed, my fears are so intangible, so vague, that when I
try to formulate my thoughts into words, even to myself, they are
unconvincing, almost meaningless. Yet I feel instinctively that
something is wrong."

"Won't you trust me?" Morrow's hand closed gently but firmly over
the girl's slender one, in a clasp of compelling sympathy, and
unconsciously she responded to it. "I know that I am comparatively
a new friend. You and your father have been kind enough to extend your
hospitality to me, to accept me as a friend. You know very little
about me, yet I want you to believe that I am worthy of trust--that
I want to help you. I do, Emily, more than you realize, more than I
can express to you now!"

Morrow had forgotten the reason for his presence there, forgotten his
profession, his avowed purpose, everything but the girl beside him.
But her next words brought him swiftly back to a realization of the
present--so swiftly that for a moment he felt as if stunned by an
unexpected blow.

"Oh, I do believe that you are a friend! I do trust you!" Emily's
voice thrilled with deep sincerity, and in an impetuous outburst of
confidence she added: "It is about my father that I am troubled.
Something has happened which I do not understand; there is something
he is keeping from me, which has changed him. He seems like a
different man, a stranger!"

"You are sure of it?" Morrow asked, slowly. "You are sure th