For two hours he walked the pavements--up through the Park; out along the edge of the river and back again. With every step there came to him the realization of the parallels existing between his own life's romance and that of Philip's. Some of these were mere creations of his brain; others--especially those which ended in the sacrifice of a man's career for what he considered to be right--had a certain basis of fact. Then a shiver crept over him: For honor he had lost the woman he loved: Was Phil to tread the same weary path and for the same cause? And if fate should be thus cruel would he and Madeleine forget in time and lead their lives anew and apart, or would their souls cry out in anguish as his had done all these years, each day bringing a new longing and each day a new pain: he in all the vigor of his manhood and the full flower of his accomplishment and still alone and desolate. With these reflections, none of them logical--but all showing the perturbed condition of his mind and his anxiety for those he loved, he mounted the stairs of the building and pushed open the door of his studio. It had grown quite dark and the studio was filled with shadows. As he crossed to the mantel--he rarely entered the room without pausing for a moment in front of the portrait--Olivia's face, with that strange, wan expression which the fading light always brought to view, seemed to stand out from the frame as if in appeal, a discovery that brought a further sinking of the heart to his already overburdened spirit. With a quick movement, as if dreading the power of prolonged darkness, he struck a match and flashed up the circle of gas jets, flooding the studio with light. Suddenly he stopped and swept his eyes rapidly around the room. Some one beside himself was present. He had caught the sound of a slight movement and the murmur of whispering voices. Then a low, rippling laugh fell upon his ears--the notes of a bird singing in the dark, and the next instant Madeleine sprang from behind a screen where she had been hiding and threw her arms around his neck. "Guess!" she cried, pressing his ruddy cheeks, fresh from his walk, between her tiny palms. "Guess what's happened! Quick!" The revulsion was so great that for the moment he lost his breath. "No! you couldn't guess! Nobody could. Oh, I'm so happy! _Father's--made--it--up--with--Phil!_" "Made it up! How do you know?" he stammered. "Phil's just left him. Come out, Phil!" Phil's head now peered from behind the screen. "What do you think of that, Old Gentleman?" he cried, clasping Adam's outstretched hand. "And there isn't any trouble, Phil, over Mr. Stockton's note?" exclaimed Gregg in a joyous but baffled tone of voice: he was still completely at sea over the situation. "Trouble over what?" asked Phil, equally mystified. "That's what I want to know. You wrote me that it meant more trouble for your firm."