Twelve hundred pounds! In her wildest imaginings she had never dreamed of Tony's owing such a sum. She shivered a little, partly from nerves, partly from sheer physical cold. The fire had smouldered to black ash long ere this, and the chill air which precedes the dawn was creeping into the room. Even the necessity of conducting the entire conversation in lowered tones, in order not to disturb the sleeping household, added to the aguish, strained feeling of which she was conscious. "There is only one thing to do, Tony," she said at last. "You must tell Sir Philip." A sharp ejaculation escaped him, hastily stifled as she raised a warning finger enjoining silence. "Sh! Don't make a noise! We mustn't wake any one," she cautioned him. "You _must_ tell Sir Philip," she resumed. "There's simply nothing else to be done." "It would be utterly useless," he replied with quiet conviction. "He wouldn't pay. He said he wouldn't, last time. And he meant it.... You'd better have let me blow out my brains while I was about it, Ann"--with, a mirthless laugh. "Don't talk rot," she returned succinctly. "It's not rot. Don't you see I'm done for--gone in? A man who borrows, as I've done, and _can't pay_, is finished. Outside the pale. You don't suppose they'll let Doreen marry me after this, do you?" Ann shook her head voicelessly. She could see--only too clearly--all the consequences which must inevitably follow if the matter became public. It signalled the end of things for Tony. It meant a ruined life--love, happiness, a clean name, all would go down in the general crash. "The only thing I can do," he resumed hopelessly, "is to emigrate. Bolt, and start fresh somewhere." Ann set her teeth. "You're not going to bolt," she said doggedly. She was silent for a moment, thinking feverishly. There must he some way out--some way, if she could only come upon it. "Whom do you owe this money to?" she demanded at last. "Several different people, I suppose?" "No. One man offered to be my banker till--till my luck came round again," confessed Tony. "And I let him. But I didn't know I'd borrowed so much. It seemed to mount up all in a moment." "'In a moment!'" There was a tiny edge of contempt to Ann's voice. "How long have you been borrowing from this man?" "Oh, for a goodish time--on and off. I've paid back some. I'd have paid it all back if I'd only had a stroke of luck. But I've been losing every night for the last month." Luck! The weak man's eternal excuse for failure Ann felt as though she loathed the very word. "Who is the man you borrowed from?" she asked. Tony preserved an embarrassed silence. "Who is it?" she repeated. "I must know, Tony. We can't plan anything to help if you're not absolutely frank." "Well, if you must know--it's Brett Forrester," he said wretchedly. "It's beastly, I know, his being a friend of yours."