At the sound of a quick step in the corridor--how well he knew the young man's tread--he threw open the door and pushed aside the velvet curtain. Better welcome the poor fellow with a smile and a cheery word. "Come in, Phil!" he cried--"Come--_Why, Madeleine!_" She stood just outside the door, a heavy brown veil tied over her hat, her trim figure half concealed by a long cloak. For an instant she did not speak, nor did she move. "Yes, it's I, Mr. Gregg," she sobbed. "Are you sure there's nobody with you? Oh, I'm so wretched! I had to come: Please let me talk to you. Father told me you had been to see me. He was furious when you went away, and I know how he must have behaved to you." She seemed completely prostrated. Buoyant temperaments pendulate in extremes. He had drawn her inside now, his arms about her, holding her erect as he led her to a seat with the same tenderness of voice and manner he would have shown his own daughter. "You poor, dear child!" he cried at last. "Now tell me about it. You know how I love you both." "Oh, Mr. Gregg, it is so dreadful!" she moaned in piteous tone as she sank upon the cushions of the divan, Adam sitting beside her, her hand tight clasped in his own. "I didn't think Phil would bring all this trouble on us. I would forgive him anything but the way in which he deceived papa. He knew there was no copper in the mine, and he kept saying there was, and went right on speculating and using up everything they had, and then when it was all to be found out he turned coward and ruined everybody--and broke my heart! Oh, the cruel--cruel--" and again she hid her face in the cushions. "What would you think, little girl, if I told you that I advised him to do it?" he pleaded as he patted her shoulder to quiet her. "You couldn't do it!" Madeleine burst out in an incredulous tone, raising herself on her elbow to look the better into his eyes. "You _wouldn't_ do it! You are too kind." "But I did--as much for your sake and your father's and brother's as for his own. All the firm has lost so far is money. That can be replaced. Had Philip not told the truth it would have been their honor. That could never have been replaced." And then with her hands fast in his, every thought that crossed her mind revealed in her sweet, girlish face, Adam, his big, frank, brown eyes looking into hers, told her the story of Philip's resolve. Not the part which the portrait had played--not one word of that. She would not have understood; then, too, that was Phil's secret, not his, to tell; but the awakening of the dormant nature of an honest man, incrusted with precedents and half-strangled in financial sophistries, to the truth of what lay about him.