their little daughters. Mr. Yorke had never caressed her, and his kiss, morning and evening, was impressed upon the centre of her forehead.

Next day a sealed envelope was brought to her. It contained a pathetic message:

'I have no excuse to offer for what I am about to do except this: I am too old and too tired to begin life again.'

Too old and too tired! lines.

Esther wept when she read the unsigned For the first time in her life the ministering angel, ardent to soothe and console, leapt into being. She asked herself passionately: Had she been blind to the fact that he was old and tired? She had never thought of him as old; she had never suspected that he might be tired. Always she had watched him come and go, punctual to the minute, an automaton, the pattern man of business, never flurried, never irritable, never untidy; the very pink of respectability and integrity.

His ruin involved others in ruin. Esther read the papers with a heart-sickness impossible to describe. At the end of a dreadful week she realised that her father was not only dead but dishonoured. A hundred thousand depositors were reviling

him.

Of course she had friends who stood by her with a slightly frightened expression in their eyes, which Esther was at no loss to interpret. All these good people were trying to readjust a point of view always a delicate, and in this case a somewhat harrowing, achievement. Esther, as the penniless daughter of a splendid impostor, seemed in her turn to have imposed upon everybody who knew her. No one put the common thought into common words till Esther said to Harry Rye: 'They look at me as if I ought to have chosen another father.'

To this the young man replied promptly, 'The beasts! ' 'I am the same,' continued Esther, vehemently. altered, but they have changed-every one of them.'

I've not

Rye was in the diplomatic service, and prided himself upon the possession of tact. How could he tell this poor little dear that she had changed enormously? An appalling catastrophe had transmuted her from clay into marble. And he had admired in her the soft qualities, ingenuous faith in others, a sweet disposition, generosity, and kindliness. She had been adorable. Really, it was incredible that she should not know that she, not her friends, had changed.

For some years Rye had told himself that Esther would make him an admirable little wife, provided always that her dot was what the world said it ought to be, although he, for his part, would be willing to take her without a sou. That, however, would be unfair on her. He had only seven hundred a year. Esther spent at least as much upon her clothes, probably more. Esther, dowdily dressed, counting sixpences and considering the expediency of rehashing the mutton, was quite inconceivable.

It is only fair to Rye to add that from the time he had left Eton the necessity of seeking a mate in the habitations of the very rich had been rubbed like ointment into his plastic and receptive mind. Lady Matilda Rye, his mother, was too clever and charming a person to extol marriages of convenience, or to worship in public the Golden Calf; and everybody, of course, knew that she had married for love, made a romantic affair of it, a runaway match with a blue-eyed Guardsman! And everybody knew, also, that she had bobbed up, serenely unwrinkled, after fifteen years of storm and stress with her poor dear Reginald, who died miserably of that universal modern disease, intemperance in all things. Lady Matilda and her two children settled down in Pont Street. Three months before the death of Mr. Yorke, the elder of these children, Dorothea-so named because the gift came from heaven just when the blue-eyed Guardsman was beginning to slide rapidly in the opposite direction-had married George Treherne, the head of the famous shipbuilding firm, and at the marriage ceremony, which was honoured by the presence of royalty, Lady Matilda had beamed upon Esther in green gooseberry chiffon, a bridesmaid obviously destined to become in her turn a lovely and happy bride. Dear Harry might have gone a-courting in Surbiton, or at the stage door of the Jollity Theatre, or in some obscure country parsonage. Thanks to Lady Matilda's teaching, never didactic, never obtrusive, her boy had grasped the great truth that sweet, rich, charming girls may be found in dozens upon the wrong side of Hyde Park.

The suspension of payments at Yorke's Bank in Fleet Street nearly reduced Lady Matilda to a condition of collapse. She sent for Harry and implored him to do nothing rash. Harry came away from a memorable interview (Lady Matilda was in bed) acutely sensible that he was awfully sorry' for the little Mater, awfully sorry' for Esther, and awfully sorry' for himself. To a friend at the Foreign Office he muttered gloomily that this was

a hard world. The friend, who sometimes asked indiscreet questions, said abruptly:

'What are you going to do, Harry?' and to this Harry replied that he was damned if he knew, but that he could be counted on to do the real right thing.

'This is rather a problem,' said his friend thoughtfully. 'How are you going to do the real right thing by your mother and by Miss Yorke ?'

*I wish you wouldn't mention names,' said Harry, fretfully.

To another friend he complained that the Fates were not providing a square deal. The young fellow belonged to that gallant company of British youths who believe that the world owes them something. Harry had always been modest, and, under somewhat cruel circumstances, cheery and optimistic. He admitted candidly that the marriage, late in life, of his uncle, Lord Camber, and the subsequent appearance of twin sons, had been a nasty jar.' It is true that his uncle continued his allowance, but Harry felt vaguely that he was one of the unlucky brigade. Camber Castle and forty thousand a year would have suited him down to the ground, and-if he said it himself-the world would have been a cheerier place if—well, if those confounded twins had not knocked him out.

In presenting our paladin as he was, and allowing him to express himself in his own words, the risk, not a light one, is run of raising a prejudice against him in the minds of the thoughtful and serious. His own medical attendant, Sir Bedford Slufter, who (before a baronetcy was conferred upon him) had treated in him to a successful issue whooping-cough, mumps, chicken-pox, and German measles, may be quoted as affirming that Harry was a capital fellow, a good sportsman, an affectionate son and brother, a sound cricketer, and an Imperialist. In a popular magazine, photographs of Harry at the interesting ages of three, seven, eleven, seventeen, and twenty-four had been reproduced with the significant words beneath: One of the best. At seven we see him in a white sailor suit, but, oddly enough, grasping a stick by the wrong end! Why the wrong end? Dare we affirm that coming events were casting shadows before? At eleven he exhibits proudly his first gun, a single-barrelled weapon of small bore. What a handsome curlyheaded youngster it is! And he looks the camera straight in the face. We behold him at seventeen in flannels, a member of the Eton XI. and, obviously, a tremendous swell. The large

central picture (taken free of charge and copyrighted by an eminent firm in Baker Street) represents him as one of the Gentlemen of England after a glorious victory over the Players.

To Harry Rye, Esther turned in her trouble. What she thought of him may be indicated-no more. Esther, when a small girl, had seen Harry make a century at Lord's in the Eton and Harrow match. After this fine performance, he took Esther for a stroll, and treated her to strawberry ice. She said that she preferred vanilla, but Harry was positive that strawberry ice, made from real strawberries, was the better. Esther accepted this statement as gospel, regarding young Rye as a sort of Gamaliel in flannels. She adored him, and he knew it.

Afterwards she came to occupy a definite place in his present and future. Esther, so to speak, was always there. He could think of her comfortably as his for the asking. One of these days they were going to be as happy as larks. Part of the charmand even Esther would have admitted this-bloomed in the fact that they were not engaged. Harry was twenty-six and Esther twenty. Lady Matilda, smiling through rose-coloured spectacles, used the word 'idyll.' The affair, in her eyes, was so appropriate, so obviously fashioned in heaven, so 'deevy '-a word coined in those days, and now regrettably become obsolete.

Harry came to Palace Gardens, and sat beside the stricken girl, holding her hand. In a garden of roses by Bendemeer's stream

he would have taken Esther into his arms and kissed the tears from her eyes. In a huge drawing-room, upholstered in primrose satin, such ardour might be stigmatised as unseasonable and exuberant. Harry held her hand, and from time to time gently pressed it.

Not many words passed at this first interview, which took place the day after the banker's death, and before the full extent of the catastrophe was realised. Harry knew that a smash was impending, but his optimistic temperament jumped to the conviction that there must be pickings. The primrose satin upholstery fortified this belief. Esther surely was provided for decently. Twenty thousand pounds at the very least. That meant economy. He would have to stick to his profession. Esther was just the sort of girl to appreciate the man who worked for her. Accordingly, when Esther whispered: 'I suppose you know the bank is shut up?' he replied reassuringly: Money is not everything; we shall pull through, we shall pull through.'

The we' and the repetition comforted poor Esther. She

edged nearer to the cricketer and the Imperialist, but he did nothing rash. Esther told herself that Harry was thinking of the dead man upstairs. Harry told himself that he was doing the right thing, and that the Mater, God bless her! would applaud his selfcontrol and consideration. Don't imagine for an instant that he was invertebrate or cold-blooded. When Esther edged close to him, the desire to do something rash became almost overmastering. For a fraction of a second he could hear himself saying: My own girl, if I loved you when you were happy and prosperous, don't know that I love you now ten times as much? That is what he would have said, had not the little Mater been lying in bed and dabbing a fevered brow with eau de Cologne and water.

you

George Treherne, with whom Harry dined that same evening, talked mysteriously of defalcations, trust money misapplied, and so forth. Harry rather despised George both as man and brotherin-law, but as a financier he was admittedly sound. George shook his long head when Harry muttered something about pickings.

'It's going to be worse than we thought. Will you have another glass of port wine ? '

‘Thanks,' said Harry. As he filled his glass, he added: 'Of course Esther has been provided for?'

Dorothea had gone away, leaving the men alone.

'What do you mean?' George replied. I don't suppose Yorke made a settlement on her; and his will, I hear, is ten years old. If that is the case, Esther, probably, has been left a large fortune which no longer exists. Old Sol told me this afternoon that the house in Palace Gardens and everything in it was mortgaged a few months ago.'

'Who the deuce is Old Sol ? '

'The moneylender. It's his business to know these little things. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the girl had nothing.' There must be-er-something.'

'No "must" about it. Shall we join Dorothea? ' Dorothea was in the hall lined with Cipolino marble with panels of blue sodolite from Canada and a mosaic ceiling. The source of light was invisible; a soft glow suffused things and persons with a faint rose-coloured tone. In such a room pessimism is impossible. Harry smoked one of Treherne's best and biggest cigars and drank a glass of 1808 brandy. Dorothea stared at him as if trying to pierce an exterior of well-bred impassivity. For the moment Harry puzzled her. She divined his distress, but could