"O, Peggy!" she cried in a stifled voice, "if I thought he could explain, I’d be only too glad to give him the chance. But you know yourself he can’t. And how can I bear to tell him that I know all about it. If it was anything else, I wouldn’t feel so," she added despairingly. "But think, Peggy, of telling your brother that you know he has been cheating your father, and being mean and underhanded, all the time that he talked so beautifully about how grateful he was for what had been done for him, and how hard he was going to try to make us all proud of him." It was a black picture. "Then, I suppose," said Peggy, after a long pause, "that you’ll tell your father." "Father!" Ruth spoke the word with a little protesting cry. "Why, it would kill father to know such a thing about Graham. He never could bear it." Peggy hesitated. Strong as her sympathy was for Ruth, her sturdy common sense refused to take her friend’s view of the case. "Ruth, this is too serious a thing for two girls like us to keep to ourselves. Somebody’s got to know, somebody who’ll understand what to do." Ruth sprang to her feet. "You don’t mean that you’ll tell. Peggy, you couldn’t be so--so dishonorable as to tell. I came to you because I had to confide in somebody. And, now, if I can’t trust you--" "O, good gracious!" exclaimed Peggy with an irritation of which she was immediately ashamed. "Of course I’m not going to tell. But _you_ are. Ruth, you must." Again and again they went over the ground, Peggy coaxing, persuading, trying vainly to bring her friend’s resolution to the sticking point, while Ruth squirmed and evaded and protested, and even accused Peggy of heartlessness. "I tell you it would kill father. He’s wrapped up in Graham. If he found out that he had tricked and cheated him he’d never have another happy minute." "Your mother, then." "Mother! Why, that would be worse, if anything could be worse. Her heart isn’t strong, you know. The doctor says we must be careful about shocks--" "Then, Ruth Wylie, there’s no two ways about it. You’ve got to pluck up your courage and have it out with Graham." It was in the discussion of this point that Peggy was accused of heartlessness, a most unjust charge, for at the moment her heart was aching for poor Ruth in her misery. "You don’t understand!" Ruth insisted. "You _can’t_ understand. Your brother is younger than you are, but if he were older, and you’d always looked up to him, and thought he was perfectly splendid, and felt sorry for other girls with ordinary brothers, just think what it would be like to face him and tell him that you’d found him out, and that he was mean and contemptible. O, it don’t seem as if I could be talking about Graham. O, Peggy, why did I ever read that letter?"