The autumn evening darkened slowly. At last!—a ring and a double knock. The study door opened, and Connie heard Nora’s step, and the click of the letter-box. The study door closed again. Connie put down her novel and listened. Her hands trembled. She was full indeed of qualms and compunctions. Would they be angry with her? She had meant it well. Footsteps approaching—not Nora’s. Uncle Ewen stood in the doorway—looking very pale and strained. “Connie, would you mind coming into my study? Something rather strange has happened.” Connie got up and slowly followed him across the hall. As she entered the study, she saw Nora, with blazing eyes and cheeks, standing by her father’s writing-table, aglow with anger or excitement—or both. She looked at Connie as at an enemy, and Connie flushed a bright pink. Uncle Ewen shut the door, and addressed his niece. “My dear Connie, I want you, if you can—to throw some light on a letter I have just received. Both Nora and I suspect your hand in it. If so, you have done something I—I can’t permit.” He held out a letter, which Connie took like a culprit. It was a communication from his Oxford bankers to Professor Hooper, to the effect that, a sum of £1100 having been paid in to his credit by a person who desired to remain unknown, his debt to them was covered, and his account showed a balance of about six hundred pounds. “My dear!”—his voice and hand shook—“is that your doing?” “Of course it is!” interrupted Nora passionately. “Look at her, father! How dared you, Connie, do such a thing without a word to father! It’s a shame—a disgrace! We could have found a way out—we could!” And the poor child, worn out with anxiety and lack of sleep, and in her sensitive pride and misery ready to turn on Connie and rend her for having dared thus to play Lady Bountiful without warning or permission, sank into a chair, covered her face with her hands, and burst out sobbing. Connie handed back the letter, and hung her head. “Won’t you—won’t you let the person—who—sent the money remain unknown, Uncle Ewen?—as they wished to be?” Uncle Ewen sat down before his writing-table, and he also buried his face in his hands. Connie stood between them—as it were a prisoner at the bar—looking now very white and childish. “Dear Uncle Ewen—” “How did you guess?” said Nora vehemently, uncovering her face—“I never said a word to you!” Connie gave a tremulous laugh. “Do you think I couldn’t see that you were all dreadfully unhappy about something? I—I made Alice tell me—” “Alice is a sieve!” cried Nora. “I knew, father, we could never trust her.” “And then”—Connie went on—“I—I did an awful thing. I’d better tell you. I came and looked at Nora’s papers—in the schoolroom drawer. I saw that.” She pointed penitentially to a sheet of figures lying on the study table. Both Nora and her uncle looked up in amazement, staring at her.