'And Alice, Sheila?"

'Alice, dear, of course goes with ME.'

'You realise,' he stirred uneasily, `you realise it may be
final.'

'My dear Arthur,' cried Sheila, 'it is surely, apart from
mere delicacy, a parental obligation to screen the poor child
from the shock. Could she be at such a time in any better keeping
than her mother's? At present she only vaguely guesses. To know
definitely that her father, infinitely worse than death, had--
had-- Oh, is it possible to realise anything in this awful cloud?
It would kill her outright.'

Lawford made no stir. The quietest of raps came at the door. 'The
money from the Bank, ma'am,' said a faint voice.

Sheila carefully opened the door a few inches. She laid the blue
envelope on the dressing-table at her husband's elbow. 'You had
better perhaps count it,' she said in a low voice--'forty in
notes, the rest in gold,' and narrowed her eyes beneath her veil
upon her husband's very peculiar method of forgetting his
responsibilities.

'French?' she said with a nod. 'How very quaint"

Lawford's eyes fell and rested gravely on the dingy page of
Herbert's mean-looking bundle of print. A queer feeling of cold
crept over him. 'Yes,' he said vaguely, 'French,' and hopelessly