“Is anything wrong? Has anything happened?” she asked quickly. The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows! It is an evil world, Mademoiselle Erica, as you will realize when you have lived in it as long as I have. But I detain you. Good bye. AU REVOIR!” He took off his hat with a flourish, and passed on. Erica, feeling baffled and a little cross, hurried home. M. Noirol had not teased her today, but he had been inscrutable and tiresome, and he had made her feel uneasy. She opened the front door, and went at once to her father's study, pausing for a moment at the sound of voices within. She recognized, however, that it was her cousin, Tom Craigie, who was speaking, and without more delay she entered. Then in a moment she understood why M. Noirol had been so mysterious. Tom was speaking quickly and strongly, and there was a glow of anger on his face. Her father was standing with his back to the mantlepiece, and there was a sort of cold light in his eyes, which filled Erica with dismay. Never in the most anxious days had she seen him look at once so angry, yet as weighed down with care. “What is the matter?” she questioned, breathlessly, instinctively turning to Tom, whose hot anger was more approachable. “The scamp of a Christian has gone bankrupt,” he said, referring to the defendant in the late action, but too furious to speak very intelligibly. “Mr. Cheale, you mean?” asked Erica. “The scoundrel! Yes! So not a farthing of costs and damages shall we see! It is the most fiendish thing ever heard of!” “Will the costs be very heavy?” “Heavy! I should think they would indeed!” He named the probable sum; it seemed a fearful addition to the already existing burden of debts. A look of such pain and perplexity came over Erica's face that Raeburn for the first time realizing what was passing in the room, drew her toward him, his face softening, and the cold, angry light in his eyes changing to sadness. “Never mind, my child,” he said, with a sigh. “'Tis a hard blow, but we must bear up. Injustice won't triumph in the end.” There was something in his voice and look which made Erica feel dreadfully inclined to cry; but that would have disgraced her forever in the eyes of stoical Tom, so she only squeezed his hand hard and tried to think of that far-distant future of which she had spoken to Charles Osmond, when there would be no tiresome Christians and bigots and lawsuits. There was, however, one person in the house who was invariably the recipient of all the troubled confidences of others. In a very few minutes Erica had left the study and was curled up beside her mother's couch, talking out unreservedly all her grief, and anger, and perplexity.