But it was a news item on the other inside page which made the colour die out of the girl's face as the clouds grow gray in the west after the sun is gone. It was a news item only, printed without comment, but a cold hand was laid upon Julia's heart as she read on and on, down to the last bitter word, then sat crushed and shivering in the warm June sunshine. The item told of the passing of the bank dividend, giving in explanation the reasons which Marston had declared to the directors of the institution. She could scarcely believe it. It was their maintenance--their sole support. Without it was abject poverty, starvation. They could not live another month, to say nothing of six months, shorn of this income. Slowly her numbed mind came back to its normal state, and she tried to think it out. Why had it been done? Did the item say? Who had done it? Were there any names given? In a dazed way she lifted the paper which she had allowed to fall to the ground, and read the paragraph again. No names were given. "The directors deemed it necessary" because of the reasons which followed. She could not doubt its truth. She sat gazing in front of her, stunned, hopeless. Fate was surely unkind. Neither she nor her father merited treatment like this. Her spirit grew rebellious, almost wicked. After a time Aunt Frances came to receive orders for dinner. "Anything you can find" was Julia's reply, and she continued to gaze straight in front of her, A buggy passed, and its occupant lifted his hat, but she made no sign. She did not see the buggy, nor Glenning. He wondered that she did not return his salutation. Then he saw a newspaper crushed in her hand, and his active mind guessed the truth. He drove on with his heart seething at the injustice of it all, and his inability to help. The moments passed, and still Julia sat like a woman of stone, a look on her fresh young face which was piteous in its tragic helplessness. "Daddy must not know! Daddy must not know!" This one sentence coursed through her mind with each throb of her pulse, and its constant reiteration almost maddened her, for how could she hold the truth from him? She saw nothing, not even the figure which presently laboured up the drive, wiping the streaming perspiration from its face as it came. Not till Dillard stopped in front of her, waiting to be recognized, did she lift her eyes to him, dully. But she said nothing. She felt as one who had suddenly come to the end of life, unexpectedly, in the heyday of his youth and happiness. "Good morning, Miss Julia," said Dillard, "may I sit down? I can't stay but a moment." She brushed her skirts aside, and the young man took the seat made vacant by her movement. He was breathing hard, and had evidently come in a hurry. He, too, noted the paper, and he saw where it was opened.