"Phebe!" she exclaimed, "you here again? Then you can tell me, are the good people of Riversborough gone mad? or is it possible there is an election going on, of which I have heard nothing? Nothing less than an election could rouse them to such a pitch of excitement." "Have you heard nothing of what they say?" asked Phebe. "There is such a Babel," she answered; "of course I hear my husband's name. It would be just like him if he got himself elected member for Riversborough without telling me anything about it till it was over. He loves surprises; and I--why I hate to be surprised." "But he is gone!" said Phebe. "Yes, he told me he was going to London," she went on; "but if it is no election scene, what is it, Phebe? Why are all the people gathered here in such excitement?" "Shall I tell you plainly?" asked Phebe, looking steadily into Felicita's dark, inscrutable eyes. "Tell me the simple truth," she replied, somewhat haughtily; "if any human being can tell it." "Then the bank has stopped payment," answered Phebe. "Poor Mr. Acton has been found dead in bed this morning; and Mr. Sefton is gone away, nobody knows where. It is the May fair to-day, and all the people are coming in from the country. There's been a run on the bank till they are forced to stop payment. That is what brings the crowd here." Felicita dropped the curtain which she had been holding back with her hand, and stepped back a pace or two from the window. But her face scarcely changed; she listened calmly and collectedly, as if Phebe was speaking of some persons she hardly knew. "My husband will come back immediately," she said. "Is not Mr. Clifford there?" "Yes," said Phebe. "Are you telling me all?" asked Felicita. "No," she answered; "Mr. Clifford says he has been robbed. Securities worth nearly ten thousand pounds are missing. He must have found it out already." "Who does he suspect?" she asked again imperiously; "he does not dare suspect my husband?" Phebe replied only by a mute gesture. She had never had any secret to conceal before, and she did not see that she had betrayed herself by the words she had uttered. The deep gloom on her bright young face struck Felicita for the first time. "Do you think it was Roland?" she asked. Again the same dumb, hopeless gesture answered the question. Phebe could not bring her lips to shape a word of accusation against him. It was agony to her to feel her idol disgraced and cast down from his high pedestal; yet she had not learned any way of concealing or misrepresenting the truth. "You know he did it?" said Felicita. "Yes, I know it," she whispered. For a minute or two Felicita stood, with her white hands resting on Phebe's shoulders, gazing into her mournful face with keen, questioning eyes. Then, with a rapid flush of crimson, betraying a strong and painful heart-throb, which suffused her face for an instant and left it paler than before, she pressed her lips on the girl's sunburnt forehead.