"You are tired?" he found himself asking solicitously, after she had expressed her sympathy for his supposed ill fortune. "You found your work difficult to-day at the club?" "Oh, no,"--she shook her head slowly. "My position is a mere sinecure, thanks to Miss Lawton's wonderful consideration. I have been a little depressed--a little worried, that is all." "Worried?" Morrow paused, then added in a lower tone, the words coming swiftly, "Can't you tell me, Emily? Isn't there some way in which I can help you? What is it that is troubling you?" "I--I don't know." A deeper, painful flush spread for a moment over her face, then ebbed, leaving her paler even than before. "You are very kind, Mr. Morrow, but I do not think that I should speak of it to anyone. And indeed, my fears are so intangible, so vague, that when I try to formulate my thoughts into words, even to myself, they are unconvincing, almost meaningless. Yet I feel instinctively that something is wrong." "Won't you trust me?" Morrow's hand closed gently but firmly over the girl's slender one, in a clasp of compelling sympathy, and unconsciously she responded to it. "I know that I am comparatively a new friend. You and your father have been kind enough to extend your hospitality to me, to accept me as a friend. You know very little about me, yet I want you to believe that I am worthy of trust--that I want to help you. I do, Emily, more than you realize, more than I can express to you now!" Morrow had forgotten the reason for his presence there, forgotten his profession, his avowed purpose, everything but the girl beside him. But her next words brought him swiftly back to a realization of the present--so swiftly that for a moment he felt as if stunned by an unexpected blow. "Oh, I do believe that you are a friend! I do trust you!" Emily's voice thrilled with deep sincerity, and in an impetuous outburst of confidence she added: "It is about my father that I am troubled. Something has happened which I do not understand; there is something he is keeping from me, which has changed him. He seems like a different man, a stranger!" "You are sure of it?" Morrow asked, slowly. "You are sure that it isn't just a nervous fancy? Your father really has changed toward you lately?" "Not only toward me, but to all the world beside!" she responded. "Now that I look back, I can see that his present state of mind has been coming on gradually for several months, but it was only a short time ago that something occurred which seemed to bring the matter, whatever it is, to a turning-point. I remember that it was just a few days before you came--I mean, before I happened to see you over at Mrs. Quinlan's." She stopped abruptly, as if an arresting finger had been laid across her lips, and after waiting a moment for her to continue, Morrow asked quietly: "What was it that occurred?"