"I think I know. Barney told me the night before last. One of the clerks bought an alarm and left it on his desk while he went out to lunch. He had previously announced that he was going to meet his fiancee in town, and take her to a concert after dinner. Barney got hold of the alarm and set it for nine o'clock. He knew the poor creatures would be sitting in cheap seats, and that there would be no cloak-room for their things. The man would put the clock in his hat under the seat, and at the appointed time, _Cr-r-r-r-r_, off it would go! He would not be able to stop it. I asked Barney last night what had happened, but he would not tell me much. I suppose he was in low spirits about his dismissal. The alarm had gone off in the midst of a classical concerto, and the people around had been so cross that the clerk had to rush out with it as fast as he could go. He was very angry, and went straight to the manager to complain." "Oh! oh! how naughty!" cried Philippa. Hope was laughing softly to herself, but Phil looked at Steve's stern face and dared not show any amusement. "Where _is_ Barney!" she asked. "Perhaps he does not like to come in until we have read our letters. Call him, Theo dear, will you! His breakfast will be cold." Theo stepped across the narrow passage and tapped at the door of Barney's room, waited a moment, opened it gently, then came running back, all scared and breathless. "He is not there! The bed has not been slept in. Oh Phil, what does it mean?" But she knew what it meant; they all knew. There was no need for explanation. Together they crushed into the little room and looked around with haggard eyes. Theo had a dreary sense of having been through it all before; and indeed it was an old, old story, even to the torn-up papers on the hearth and the letter of farewell on the dressing-table. It was addressed to Philippa, and she read it aloud, with short, gasping breaths: "`I have lost my situation, and have got into debt, and lost money betting on races, and the best thing I can do is to take myself off and not trouble you any longer.--I can't stay here to be a shame and a burden.'--[Oh Barney!]--`If you and Steve will pay off my bills, you can look upon the money as my share in what was left. I will never trouble you for any more.'" Here came a great dash as if the writer had intended to end the letter, but at the bottom of the sheet were a few words scribbled in uncertain letters: "Good-bye, Phil. I'll try to keep straight for your sake." Philippa looked up; agony was written on her face, but her first words were of thanksgiving. "Thank God! He is alive and well; he will do himself no harm. My poor boy! We must find him and bring him home again."