father here that disillusionment would be speedy; but he was far away, and always his last words were with me, as he spoke them that night in the street: "You will take care of Penelope, won't you, boy?" I had promised that. It was simply repeating my boyhood promise. And now I kept asking myself if I was not forgetting that trust when I kept silent because I feared in my pride to place myself in the light of an intermeddler, a bearer of scandalous tales; I would remember that morning when we had stood by the cabin door and I told her not to be afraid for I was guarding her. Was I guarding her? For two weeks I kept puzzling over my course of action. I felt that the knowledge I held was hers by right, and hers, not mine, to judge of its triviality. Yet I could not bring myself to face her with it. Then came the time when I had to speak at once if I was to speak at all. Mr. Hanks sent for me. As I stood before him, he studied me through his spectacles with his cold eyes, as he had studied me in those days when I was trying to persuade him to give me work, and I began counting my sins, wondering if in the cataclysm of ill luck which had overtaken me, I was to lose my position also. After a moment he asked, as casually as he might have assigned me to an expedition to Harlem a few years before: "Malcolm, how soon can you leave for London?" "At once," I said, and I spoke as casually as he, though my heart leaped at the mention of London, for here I sensed an opportunity beyond my wildest hopes. "At once," he laughed and rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "I told the old man you would say that. He said that you were too young to fill Colt's shoes. Colt is ill, Malcolm; has to come home for a year's rest and I have backed you to do his work awhile. Of course, you won't do it as well as he, but you will do it fairly well, I think." "I will do my best," said I, smiling. "That is the way to talk," he returned. "I need hardly tell you to keep your head and work hard, and perhaps you will pull through till Colt gets back. He will be a little hurt when he sees his substitute. He has been there twenty years and feels himself quite a figure in the world, but as he has cabled for relief at once, he can't complain if we send him the one man who is always ready to go anywhere at once. Really, you have three days; you sail on Saturday."