"Felix--Mr. Dysart?" The girl's face had grown pale during the recital of the suicide, but now it looks ghastly. "Why should he come?" cries she in a ringing tone, that has actual fear in it. "Do you suppose that we two cannot manage the children between us? Oh, nonsense, Barbara; why Tommy is as sensible as he can be, and if nurse does prove incapable, and a prey to seasickness, well--I can take baby, and you can look after Mabel. It will be all right! We are not going to America, really. Freddy, please say you will not trouble Mr. Dysart about this matter." "Yes, I really think we shall not require him," says Barbara. Something in the glittering brightness of her sister's eye warns her to give in at once, and indeed she has been unconsciously a little half-hearted about having Felix or any stranger as a travelling companion. "There, run away, Joyce, and go to your bed, darling; you look very tired. I must still arrange some few things with Freddy." "What is the matter with her?" asks Monkton, when Joyce has gone away. "She looks as if she had been crying, and her manner is so excitable." "She has been strange all day, almost repellant. Felix called--and--I don't know what happened; she insisted upon my leaving her alone with him; but I am afraid there was a scene of some sort. I know she had been crying, because her eyes were so red, but she would say nothing, and I was afraid to ask her." "Better not. I hope she is not still thinking of that fellow Beauclerk. However----" he stops short and sighs heavily. "You must not think of her now," says Barbara quickly; "your own trouble is enough for you. Were your brother's affairs so very bad that they necessitate the giving up of everything?" "It has been going on for years. My father has had to economize, to cut down everything. You know the old place was let to a Mr.--Mr.--I quite forget the name now," pressing his hand to his brow; "a Manchester man, at all events, but we always hoped my father would have been able to take it back from him next year, but now----" "But you say they think in time that the property will----" "They think so. I don't. But it would be a pity to undeceive them. I am afraid, Barbara," with a sad look at her, "you made a bad match. Even when the chance comes in your way to rise out of poverty, it proves a thoroughly useless one." "It isn't like you to talk like that," says she quickly. "There, you are overwrought, and no wonder, too. Come upstairs and let us see what you will want for your journey." Her tone had grown purposely brisk; surely, on an occasion such as this she is a wife, a companion in a thousand. "There must be many things to be considered, both for you and for me. And the thing is, to take nothing unnecessary. Those foreign places, I hear, are so----" "It hardly matters what I take," says he wearily.