But Roy shook his head. There was Ann to prove, if necessary, that she had signed the other document. For a long while they sat there. It seemed as if black despair had settled upon them and there was no way out. For years Mrs. Pell had leaned upon Sydney. In an emergency like the present, he would be just the one to whom she would go for counsel. And now—he had failed her utterly. “What did you say to him, mother?” asked Roy after a while. “Were—were you kind to him?” “I tried to be. I tried to remember that he had done all for our sakes, but I feel like a ship without a rudder.” Roy left his seat near Eva and slipped into a chair next his mother, who had bowed her head on the desk in front of her. She had been writing a note to a charitable society of which she was a member. The check she was to send them lay all signed, ready to be inclosed. “Moms,” whispered Roy, using the pet name Rex had invented and pressing one of his mother’s hands tightly in his, “you have us. We are growing fast. I am sure we shall get along.” “Bless you, my boy.” His mother kissed him on the forehead, then lifted her eyes reverently, as she added: “Yes, and I must not forget that there is One who is always a friend to the needy. And now, children, we must go to bed. To-morrow we will decide what to do.” Roy stopped at Rex’s door, went in and found his brother tossing in bed. “Have you told the girls?” he asked. “Yes.” “How did they take it?” “Better than I expected they would.” “But what are we going to do, Roy?” Rex went on. “We can’t stay here.” “No, of course not.” “But what will people say? Won’t there be a terrible scandal?” “You mustn’t talk that way, Rex. Remember that you and I are the ones mother must depend on now. If she sees us looking on the dark side it’ll make it so much the harder for her.” “That’s it,” returned Rex. “Life is something you must go ahead with. You can’t lay it down when you get tired. All right; I’ll remember what you say, Roy, but it’s an awful come down.” Rex, however, “came up to the scratch,” as he himself would have expressed it, nobly the next day. Nobody went to church, and about half past eleven the door bell rang and “Mr. Darley and son” were announced. Miles, as we shall continue to call him, sent up word to know if he could come up to Rex’s room. “Do you know?” asked Reginald, as he met him in the doorway. “Yes; Mr. Sydney came around to us this morning. I can’t understand it. But I don’t want you to feel—” Miles hesitated. It was very embarrassing for him to express just what he wanted to say. Rex helped him out. “I’m awfully glad for you, old fellow,” he said heartily. “And I don’t want you to worry about us. We’ll get along some way.” “But that won’t do,” Miles persisted. “If it hadn’t been for you I might have been a common tramp now and never found my father.” “And if it hadn’t been for you I would probably have been dead long ago,” Rex retorted. “So you see we’re quits.”