"Are you certain? Just reflect. Last October it was." "I tell you she has never done anything of the sort. Why on earth should she?" Jack got up and put his hand on his shoulder. "I dare say it sounds queer to you, but I give you my word, I'm not asking from idle curiosity. Your sister _did_ write to you last October. Look here, can you make up your mind to tell me your actual trouble? You owe money, I dare say. Much?" "Much to me," Clive said reluctantly. "I don't know what you'd call it. Fifty pounds." "And to whom?" "Oh, it's all in Trent's hands now. That's one blessing." "Is that all the difficulty?" said Ibbetson. And this time he faced round and looked full at the other. Clive looked at him too, though distrustfully. "No," he said slowly. "But what there is besides, matters to no one." "No trouble with the firm?" Jack's eyes were on him still, and he saw that he hesitated. But he said "No" again. Then he broke out more eagerly. "I can't explain it to you, for Oliver wouldn't like it, and I'm under tremendous obligations to him, there's nothing wrong, only I've met with very bad luck." "Nothing wrong?" "No. That I'll swear." "Well," said Ibbetson, "perhaps I can't expect you to say more to me. But at any rate your mother and sisters deserve all your confidence. Write to them fully." "Oliver said it only bothered them, and that he would explain." "He has made a mistake or two in the matter, it seems to me," said Ibbetson with so much concentrated anger in the tone that Clive looked at him in surprise. But he recovered himself quickly and put out his hand, "You'll write, that's understood. I'm going down to Hetherton, and will see you again when I come back." The interview had only been partly satisfactory. He felt sure that Clive had neither forged a cheque nor committed any other crime, and therefore Trent's black insinuations deserved all that Phillis had thought of them. At the same time there was a depression about the young fellow which seemed to show that he was under some darker cloud than a debt of fifty pounds to a cousin. The more he thought of it, the more this conviction grew on him. Perhaps at Hetherton a light would be thrown upon it.