ssible that
there has been some misunderstanding, or that some one has failed to
perform his duty. But in any event the affair is serious. Something must
be done at once, and if you leave me in the lurch I shall have to call
in the police."

Jordan's face turned ashen pale. For some reason or other he began to
fumble about in his long black coat for the pocket. The coat had no
pocket, and yet he continued to feel for it with hasty fingers. He tried
to speak, but his tongue refused to obey him; beads of perspiration
settled on his brow.

Eleanore embraced him with solicitous affection: "Be calm, Father, don't
imagine the worst. Sit down, and let us talk it over." She dried the
perspiration from his forehead with her handkerchief, and then breathed
a kiss on it.

Jordan fell on a chair; his powers of resistance were gone; he looked at
Eleanore with beseeching tenseness. From the very first she had known
what had happened and what would happen. But she dared not show him that
she was without hope; she summoned all the power at her resourceful
command to prevent the old man from having a paralytic stroke.

With the help of Herr Zittel she wrote out a telegram to Gerber. The
answer, to be pre-paid, was to be sent to the General Agency of the
Prudentia, and Eleanore was to go to the main office between eleven and
twelve o'clock. She accompanied Herr Zittel to the front door, whereupon
he said: "Do everything in your power to get the money. If the loss can
be made good at once, Herr Diruf may be willing not to take the case to
the courts."

Eleanore knew full well that it would be exceedingly difficult to get
such a sum as this. Her father had no money in the bank; his employer
had lost confidence in him because he could no longer exert himself;
what he needed most of all was a rest.

She entered the room with a friendly expression on her face, and
remarked quite vivaciously: "Now, Father, we will wait and see what
Benno has to say; and in order that you may not worry so much, I will
read something nice to you."

Sitting on a hassock at her father's feet she read from a recent number
of the _Gartenlaube_ the description of an ascent of Mont Blanc. Then
she read another article that her eye chanced to fall upon. All the
while her bright voice was ringing through the room, she was struggling
with decisions to which she might come and listening to the ticking of
the clock. That her father no more had his mind on what she