_Can you suggest to me any means by which this trouble could be met? Is there any way of raising money by which I can stave off the utter ruin that threatens my helpless children? I turn to you as a last resort, and you will never know what it costs my pride to let you into the secret of our misery. Do not tell my darling child until her visit is over--let her have her happy, happy moments with you undimmed. I can break the bad news to her to-morrow, upon her return--or later, should you by any chance wish her to extend her visit.--I am, dear Mr. Rosenberg, your sorely tried friend,_ Virginia Mynors. The dark colour deepened upon Gerald's face as he read this letter. He laid it down with a gesture of distaste, and made no audible comment. His father, looking sympathetically at him, tapped the paper with his broad finger-tips. "Gerald," he said, "that woman is a humbug, through and through. It is the letter of a cadger. Look at it--written on paper that cost exactly ten times what her note-paper ought to cost. Little things like that tell one a lot. No doubt everything else is on the same scale. I expect they are up to their necks in debt. What can I do with that letter, except send the writer ten pounds and regret my inability to help her further? Nobody could help her. But I tell you plainly, my son--if I can prevent it, as God's above us, that woman shall never be your mother-in-law." He did not speak violently, but judicially, as one summing up a case. "I went down there once, you may remember, for a week-end, while they were still at Lissendean," he continued. "I took her measure then. She is a woman who would fleece any man who could be got to admire her. She is that type. You think the girl is different. I tell you that what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh. The girl isn't to be trusted any more than the mother. You see the position--absolutely destitute! Three of them! What is to happen? Say you marry--say you allow her two or three hundred a year--that's going to cripple you, and it isn't going to keep her." He spoke with ever-increasing urgency. "If you give her three, she'll spend five. If you give her five, she'll spend eight. Can't you see that for yourself, Gerald? It's all in that letter--every word of it--if you read between the lines." "It's a contemptible letter," said Gerald, pushing back his chair abruptly; "but I can't believe that the girl----" "Gerald, put it to yourself a moment. Even if the girl is the best girl in the world, are you prepared to keep the lot? Virginia's very qualities--her love for her family, her generosity where they are concerned--would be your ruin. You couldn't say no to her; she couldn't say no to them. There you would all be." Gerald's face hardened. His likeness to his father came out clearly--breaking, as it were, through the polish of his public school and university training. He saw the case with the Rosenberg eye, and he flinched.