"And I, who loved him, must do nothing, I suppose," cried Dora, hysterically. "I loved him, I tell you, and he loved me. We were engaged." "Engaged! What nonsense! Really, Dora!" "No one knew, Netty," sobbed Dora, aching for a little feminine sympathy, even from Netty. "Here is his ring, upon this ribbon round my neck." "Surely, you don't think that is interesting to me--and at such a time." "Well, if it isn't," cried Dora, flashing out through her tears, "perhaps your brother's honor is. I must see your mother, and urge her to refute the awful slanders spread about by Vivian Ormsby." "Oh, so your other admirer is responsible for spreading the story of Dick's misdeeds. I think he might have kept silent. You must know that it is only because Ormsby made himself ridiculous about you, and because Dick hated Ormsby, that he flirted with you, and so caused bad blood between them. I think that you might leave Dick alone, now that he is dead." "Dead! Dead! He can't be," cried Dora desperately. "I must see your mother," she insisted. "I shall go up to her room. This is no ordinary time, and my business is urgent." Netty shrugged her shoulders, and walked out of the room, apparently to inform her mother of the visit. After a long delay, Mrs. Swinton entered, looking white and haggard. "What is it you want of me?" she asked, with a feeble assumption of her usual languid tone. "Oh, Mrs. Swinton, it isn't true--tell me it isn't true! I can't believe it of him." "You are referring to Dick's trouble? Our sorrow is embittered by the knowledge that our poor boy went away--" Words failed her. She could not lie to this girl, whose eyes seemed to be searching her very soul. What did she suspect? "My father told me of the checks," said Dora. "They were made out to you. Yet, they say he forged them. How could he? I don't understand these things; and father's explanation didn't enlighten me at all. I loved Dick--you know I did." "I suspected it, Dora, and had things gone well with us, I should have been as pleased as anybody, if the affection between you ripened--" "Ripened!" cried Dora, with fine contempt: "He loved me, and I loved him. We were engaged. No one was to know till he came back, but now--well, what does it matter who knows? But those who slander him and take away his good name must answer to me. Vivian Ormsby was always his enemy. But you--you must have known what he was doing. He couldn't take all that money and go away in debt, and talk as he did of having got money from his grandfather by extortion. He told me that you'd been able to arrange things for him." "He told you that!" cried Mrs. Swinton, startled into revealing her alarm. "Yes, he told me that his grandfather had grown impossible, and that you were the only one who could get money out of him. He said you'd got lots of money, and that things were better for everybody at home--those were his words. Yet, they say he altered checks. What do they mean? How could he?"