"It was just a long distance from Richard Blount," said Molly, not knowing what else to say. "I didn't know you had asked him to go to the Glee Club concert," said Nance. "He can't go," Molly replied quickly, relieved that they had been willing to accept this explanation. "I should think he couldn't," put in Judy, in a low voice. "Mamma has just written me such news about the Blounts. The letter came by the late mail and I didn't have a chance to read it until a little while ago. Mr. Blount has failed and gone away, no one knows where. They thought they could pay off his creditors and his family found that he had mortgaged all his property and there wasn't any money left." In the dimly-lighted corridor the girls had not noticed that Molly had turned perfectly white and was clasping and unclasping her hands convulsively in an effort to retain her self-control. "No money left?" she repeated in a low voice. "Not a cent," said Judy. "Papa knows because he had some friends who lost money in a mine or something Mr. Blount owned." "Poor Judith," observed Nance. "Do you suppose she hasn't been told?" "Of course not. She wouldn't be flaunting around here to-night if she knew her family were in trouble." "How strange for us to know and for her not to!" pursued Nance. "It isn't generally known. Mamma says the papers haven't got hold of it yet, and I'm not to tell. You see mamma and I met Judith Blount one afternoon at a matinee just before college opened. That's why she was interested, because she remembered that Judith was Mr. Blount's daughter." All this time Molly's mind was busy working out the problem of how to remain at college without any money. Of course, the Blounts couldn't pay their father's debts on nothing, although Richard Blount had told her not to worry. The family would have to move out of their old home, she supposed, and take a small house in town, and everybody would have to just turn in and go to work. Oh, why had her mother heeded the advice of old Colonel Gray? He had assured her that she would make at least fifteen thousand from the money invested, while he, poor man, had squandered his entire inheritance in the enterprise, just because an old and intimate friend was backing it. That old and intimate friend was Mr. Blount, and Molly had never guessed it. Pretty soon it was time to go home. Molly found herself in the carriage, trying to listen politely to the ceaseless flow of Miss Petit's conversation, while she wrapped her old, gray eider-down cape about her and thought and thought. Suddenly the words of Madeleine Petit pierced her troubled mind.