"It would not have helped me to know that you were troubled!" "And he--your father ?" he asked.

"How did he receive it ?" Sylvia's face grew pale, and she stared at the table-cloth as though she could not for the moment trust her voice.

Then she shuddered and said in a low and shaking voice--so vivid was still the memory of that hour: "I thought that I should never see you again." She said no more.

From those few words, and from the manner in which she uttered them, Chayne had to build up the terrible scene which had taken place between Sylvia and her father in the little back room of the house in Hobart Place.

He looked round the lighted room, listened to the ripple of light voices, and watched the play of lively faces and bright eyes.
There was an incongruity between these surroundings and the words which he had heard which shocked him.
"My dear, I'll make it up to you," he said.