An anxious look swept over her face as she passed the door of his room, for she heard Addie’s voice raised in shrill accents, and to hear it thus was growing to be an every-day affair. She knew her brother’s sensitive, yet proud and gentle nature, and she knew how difficult his wife’s loud reproaches were to endure. Suddenly the door opened and his rapid footsteps were heard running down the stairs and hurrying to the library. She rose to meet him with her anxiety to make up to him for his wife’s conduct written in her face. He saw the look and misunderstood it. "Don’t look at me like that, Carol!" he cried, raising his hands as if to ward off a blow. "If you, too, feel the loss of the money as Addie does and you reproach me, I shall go mad." "Sherman!" cried his sister. "Don’t insult me by the suggestion of my reproaching you! Haven’t you lost all your money as well as mine? And would you have done either if you could have helped it?" Her brother turned uneasily. "You don’t know how it came about?" he asked. Carolina shook her head. "Ah," he breathed, "then I must wait until you have heard before I dare trust such generous statements." He hesitated, then burst out. "But at least you shall know the truth. We are absolute beggars, you and I, and Cousin Lois, and wholly dependent upon Adelaide’s bounty until I can pull myself together." Carolina recoiled as if he had struck her. A sudden sickening fear clutched her heart. Sherman said "everything." Did he include Guildford? She could not clear her eyes and voice sufficiently to mention that beloved name. Sherman went on, not heeding her silence. "I know what you mean, but it’s the truth. She acknowledges it as well as I. Her money is intact, and she will keep it so. She cannot spare any of it to start me again. I must trust in strangers." "Why strangers?" asked Carolina. "Have you no friends?" "Friends!" sneered her brother. "What do friends do for a man when he is down? Give him good advice, offer to lend him a few hundreds for living expenses, but trust him to make a second success after one failure? Never! Not even St. Quentin, one of the best fellows who ever lived, would do that!" "I think you do Noel an injustice," said Carolina, quietly. "He has offered to help me!" Sherman looked quizzically at his sister and laughed a little. "Has he, indeed?" he said, with a lift of his eyebrows. Carolina noticed his manner with a slight inward start of surprise. What could he be thinking of? She had known Noel all her life, and not once had the idea Sherman’s tone suggested entered her mind. Noel St. Quentin? She dismissed the thought with impatience. Sherman did not know what he was talking about. "I have not yet told you," he broke out suddenly, "how the money was lost. Have you no idea? You ought to know. You warned me against the man, but I refused to believe you." Carolina leaned forward and her eyes blazed. "Not Colonel Yancey?" she half-whispered.