Philippa sat on the bed as if stunned by the words flowing in such a vehement rush from her brother's lips. She was white and trembled. "O Alec," she gasped, with a shudder, "it can't be true!" Then, after a distressing silence, she sobbed, "Does everybody know it?" "Everybody in the village now, but little Mack, and he'll have to be knocked flat with the fact some day, I suppose, just as we have been." Philippa shivered and drew herself up into a disconsolate bunch against the foot-board. "To think of the way I've prided myself on our family!" she said, in a husky voice. "I've actually bragged of the Macklins and paraded the virtues of my ancestors." Alec made no answer. Down-stairs the big kitchen clock slowly struck seven. "I'll have to hurry," he remarked. Catching up his blacking-brush, he began polishing his shoes in nervous haste. "It's later than I thought. I'm due at the hotel in thirty minutes." "At the hotel!" repeated Philippa, wondering dully how he could take any interest in anything more in life, knowing all that had blighted their young lives. "Yes; but don't you tell Aunt Eunice until it's all settled. I promised to meet a man there, who's been talking to me about a position a thousand miles from here. He's interested in a manufacturing business. His firm has a scheme for making money hand over fist. He didn't tell me what it is, but he wants some young fellow about my age to go into it. 'Somebody who can keep his mouth shut,' he said, 'write a good letter, and make a favourable impression on strangers in introducing the goods.' Stumpy Fisher introduced me to him last night, and he gave me a hint of what he might do if I suited. Seemed to think I was just the man for the place. There's another fellow after it, but he thought I'd make a better impression on strangers, and that is a great consideration in their business. We're to settle it this evening, as he has to leave on the nine o'clock train. If we come to terms, he'll want me to follow next week." "Stumpy Fisher introduced you?" repeated Philippa; "why, he--he's the man that runs the Golconda, isn't he?" "Yes," admitted Alec, inwardly resenting the disapproval in her tone. "They do gamble in there, I know, and sometimes have a pretty tough row, but Stumpy is as kind-hearted a man as there is in the village." Throwing the blacking-brush hastily back into its box, Alec straightened himself up and faced his sister, "There, skip along now, Flip, like a good girl. I have to dress. And don't say a word to Aunt Eunice. I'll tell her myself." Philippa rose slowly from the bed and started toward the door. "I feel as if I were in a horrible nightmare," she said. "What you have just told me about our--him, you know, and then your going away to live. It's all so sudden and so dreadful. O Alec, I can't stand it to have you go!"