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Five feet away from her, as the motor-car waited before crossing the park entrance, a tall man and a laughing girl were standing, waiting to cross the street.

“But aren’t we too late for gallery seats?” Margaret heard the girl say, evidently deep in an important choice.

“Oh, no!” the man assured her eagerly.

“Then I choose the fifty-cent dinner and ‘Hoffman’ by all means,” she decided joyously.

Margaret looked after them, a sudden pain at her heart. She did not know what the pain was. She thought she was pitying that young husband and wife; but her thoughts went back to them as she entered her own warm, luxurious rooms a few moments later.

“Fifty-cent dinner!” she murmured. “It must be awful!”

To her surprise, her husband followed her into her room, without knocking, and paid no attention to the very cold stare with which she greeted him.

“Sit down a minute, Margaret, will you?” he said, “and let your woman go. I want to speak to you.”

Angry to feel herself a little at loss, Margaret nodded to the maid, and said in a carefully controlled tone:

“I am dining at the Kelseys’, John. Perhaps some other time–“

Her husband, a thin, tall man, prematurely gray, was pacing the floor nervously, his hands plunged deep in his coat pockets. He cleared his throat several times before he spoke. His voice was sharp, and his words were delivered quickly:

“It’s come to this, Margaret–I’m very sorry to have to tell you, but things have finally reached the point where it’s–it’s got to come out! Bannister and I have been nursing it along; we’ve done all that we could. I went down to Washington and saw Peterson, but it’s no use! We turn it all over–the whole thing–to the creditors to-morrow!” His voice rose suddenly; it was shocking to see the control suddenly fail. “I tell you it’s all up, Margaret! It’s the end of me! I won’t face it!”

He dropped into a chair, but suddenly sprang up again, and began to walk about the room.

“Now, you can do just what you think wise,” he resumed presently, in the advisory, quiet tones he usually used to her. “You can always have the income of your Park Avenue house; your Aunt Paul will be glad enough to go abroad with you, and there are personal things–the house silver and the books–that you can claim. I’ve lain awake nights planning–” His voice shook again, but he gained his calm after a moment. “I want to ask you not to work yourself up over it,” he added.

There was a silence. Margaret regarded him in stony fury. She was deadly white.

“Do you mean that Throckmorton, Kirby, & Son have–has failed?” she asked. “Do you mean that my money–the money that my father left me–is GONE? Does Mr. Bannister say so? Why–why has it never occurred to you to warn me?”

“I did warn you. I did try to tell you, in July–why, all the world knew how things were going!”

If, on the last word, there crept into his voice the plea that even a strong man makes to his women for sympathy, for solace, Margaret’s eyes killed it. John, turning to go, gave her what consolation he could.

“Margaret, I can only say I’m sorry. I tried–Bannister knows how I tried to hold my own. But I was pretty young when your father died, and there was no one to help me learn. I’m glad it doesn’t mean actual suffering for you. Some day, perhaps, we’ll get some of it back. God knows I hope so. I’ve not meant much to you. Your marriage has cost you pretty dear. But I’m going to do the only thing I can for you.”

Silence followed. Margaret presently roused herself.

“I suppose this can be kept from the papers? We needn’t be discussed and pointed at in the streets?” she asked heavily, her face a mask of distaste.

“That’s impossible,” said John, briefly.