in his letter, it
has given me a lesson. But he was so much older and so much more
experienced, that it was hard for me to ask to examine his books. But we
must waste no time. I must go to the City."

"What will you do?"

"What an honest man should do. I will write to all our clients and
creditors, assemble them, lay the whole matter before them, read them
the letter and put myself absolutely in their hands."

"That's it, boy--yard-arm to yard-arm, and have it over."

"I must go at once." He put on his top-coat and his hat. "But I have ten
minutes yet before I can catch a train. There is one little thing which
I must do before I start."

He had caught sight through the long glass folding door of the gleam of
a white blouse and a straw hat in the tennis ground. Clara used often
to meet him there of a morning to say a few words before he hurried away
into the City. He walked out now with the quick, firm step of a man who
has taken a momentous resolution, but his face was haggard and his lips
pale.

"Clara," said he, as she came towards him with words of greeting, "I am
sorry to bring ill news to you, but things have gone wrong in the City,
and--and I think that I ought to release you from your engagement."

Clara stared at him with her great questioning dark eyes, and her face
became as pale as his.

"How can the City affect you and me, Harold?"

"It is dishonor. I cannot ask you to share it."

"Dishonor! The loss of some miserable gold and silver coins!"

"Oh, Clara, if it were only that! We could be far happier together in
a little cottage in the country than with all the riches of the City.
Poverty could not cut me to the heart, as I have been cut this morning.
Why, it is but twenty minutes since I had the letter, Clara, and it
seems to me to be some old, old thing which happened far away in my past
life, some horrid black cloud which shut out all the freshness and the
peace from it."

"But what is it, then? What do you fear worse than poverty?"

"To have debts that I cannot meet. To be hammered upon 'Change and
declared a bankrupt. To know that others have a just claim upon me
and to feel that I dare not meet their eyes. Is not that worse than
poverty?"

"Yes, Harold, a thousand fold worse! But all this may be got over. Is
there nothing more?"

"My partner has fled and left me responsible for heavy debts, and in
such a position that I may be required by the law to produce some at
least of this mis