"Oh, no; it is not Mr. Hamilton. You need have no fears for him, Anita. I have come upon a business matter--a matter connected with your dear father's estate."

Anita motioned him to a chair. Seating herself opposite, she gazed at him inquiringly.

"The settlement of the estate? Oh, the lawyers are attending to that, I believe." Anita spoke a little coldly. Had Dr. Franklin come already to inquire about a possible legacy for St. James'?

She was ashamed of the thought the next moment, when he said gently, "Yes, but there is something which I must tell you. It has been requested that I do so. It is a delicate matter to discuss with you, but surely no one is more fitted to speak to you than I."

"Certainly, Doctor, I understand." She leaned forward eagerly.

"My dear, you know the whole country, the whole world at large, has always considered your father to have been a man of great wealth."

"Yes. My father's charities alone, as you are aware, unostentatiously as they were conducted, would have tended to give that impression.

Then his tremendous business interests--"

"Anita, at the moment of your father's death he was far from being the King of Finance, which the world judged him to be. It is hard for me to tell you this, but you must know, and you must try to believe that your Heavenly Father is sending you this added trial for some sure purpose of His own. Your father died a poor man, Anita. In fact, a bankrupt." The girl looked up with an incredulous smile.

"Dr. Franklin, who could ever have asked you to come to me with such an incredible a.s.sertion? Surely, you must know how preposterous the very idea is! I do not boast or brag, but it is common knowledge that my father was the richest man in the city, in this entire part of the country, in fact. The thought of such a thing is absurd. Who could have attempted to perpetrate such a senseless hoax, a ridiculous insult to your intelligence and mine?"

The minister shook his head slowly.

"'Common knowledge' is, alas, not always trustworthy. It is only too true that your father stood on the verge of bankruptcy. His entire fortune has been swept away."

"Impossible!"

Anita started from her chair, impressed in spite of herself. "How could that be? Who has told you this terrible thing?"

"The unfortunate news was disclosed to me confidentially by your late father's truest friends and closest a.s.sociates. Having your best interests at heart, they feel that you should know the state of affairs at once, and came to me as the one best fitted to inform you."

"I cannot believe it!" Anita Lawton sank back with white, strained face. "I cannot believe that it is true. How could such a thing have happened? They must be mistaken--those who gave you such information.

Father was worth millions, at least. That I know, for he told me much of his business affairs and up to the last day of his life he was engaged in tremendous deals of almost national importance."

"Might he not have become so deeply involved in one of them that he could not extricate himself, and ruin came?" Dr. Franklin insinuated.

"I know little of finance, of course; and those who wished you to know gave me none of the details beyond the one paramount fact."

"I know, of course, who were your informants," Anita said. "No one except my father's three closest a.s.sociates had any possible conception of how much he possessed, even approximately, for he was always secretive and conservative in his dealings. Only to Mr.

Mallowe, Mr. Rockamore and Mr. Carlis did he ever divulge his plans to the slightest extent. A bankrupt! My father a bankrupt? The very words seem meaningless to me. Dr. Franklin, there must be some hideous mistake."

"Unfortunately, it is no mistake, my poor child. These gentlemen you mention, I may admit to you in confidence, were my informants."

"You say they gave you no details beyond the paramount fact of my father's ruin? But surely they must have told you something more. I have a right to know, Dr. Franklin, and I shall not rest until I do.

How did such a catastrophe come to him? There have been no gigantic failures lately, no panics which could have swept him down. What terrible mistake could he have made, he whose judgment was almost infallible?"

The minister hesitated visibly, and when he spoke at last, it was as if with a conscious effort he chose his words.

"I do not think it was any sudden collapse of some project in which he was engaged, Anita, but a--a general series of misfortunes which culminated by forcing him, just before his death, to the brink of bankruptcy. You are a mere child, my dear, and could not be supposed to understand matters of finance. If you will be guided by me you will accept the a.s.surance of your friends who truly have your best interests at heart. Their statements will be confirmed, I know, by the lawyers who are engaged in settling up the estate of your father. Do not, I beg of you, inquire too closely into the details of your father's insolvency."

Anita rose slowly, her eyes fixed upon the face of the minister, and with her hands resting upon the chair-back, as if to steady herself, she asked quietly:

"Why should I not? What is there which I, his daughter, should not know? Dr. Franklin, there is something behind all this which you are trying to conceal from me. I knew my father to be a multi-millionaire.

You come and tell me he was a pauper instead, a bankrupt; and I am not to ask how this state of affairs came about? You have known me since I was a little girl--surely you understand me well enough to realize that I shall not rest under such a condition until the whole truth is revealed to me!"

"I am your friend." The resonance in the minister's voice deepened.

"You will believe me when I tell you that it would be best for your future, for the honor of your father's memory, to place yourself without question in the hands of your true friends, and to ask no details which are not voluntarily given you."

"'Best for my future!'" she repeated, aghast. "'For the honor of my father's memory.' What do you mean, Dr. Franklin? You have gone too far not to speak plainly. Do you dare--are you insinuating, that there was something disgraceful, dishonorable about my father's insolvency?

You have been my spiritual adviser nearly all my life, and when you tell me that my father was a bankrupt, that the knowledge comes to you from his best friends and will be corroborated by his attorneys, I am forced to believe you. But if you attempt to convince me that my father's honor--his good name--is involved, then I tell you that it is not true! Either a terrible mistake has been made or a deliberate conspiracy is on foot--the blackest sort of conspiracy, to defame the dead!"

"My dear!" The minister raised his hands in shocked amazement. "You are beside yourself, you don't know what you are saying! I have repeated to you only that which was told to me, and in practically the same words. As to the possibility of a conspiracy, you will realize the absurdity of such an idea when I deliver to you the message with which I was charged. Your father's partner in many enterprises, the Honorable Bertie Rockamore, together with President Mallowe, of the Street Railways, and Mr. Carlis, the great politician, promised some little time ago that they would stand in _loco parentis_ toward you should your natural protector be removed. They desire me to tell you that you need have no anxiety for the immediate future. You will be cared for and provided with all that you have been accustomed to, just as if your father were alive."

"Indeed? They are most kind--" Anita spoke quietly enough, but with a curiously dry, controlled note in her voice which reminded the minister of her father's tones, and for some inexplicable reason he felt vaguely uncomfortable. "Please say to them that I do sincerely appreciate their magnanimity, their charity, toward one who has no right, legal or moral, to claim protection or care from them. But now, Dr. Franklin, may I beg that you will forgive me if I retire? The news you have brought me of course has been a terrible shock. I must have time to collect my thoughts, to realize the sudden, terrible change this revelation has made in my whole life. I am deeply grateful to you, to my father's three a.s.sociates, but I can say no more now."

"Of course, dear child." Dr. Franklin patted her hand perfunctorily and arose with ill-concealed relief that the interview was at an end.

He could not understand her att.i.tude of the last few moments and it troubled him vaguely. She had received the news of her father's bankruptcy with a girlish horror and incredulousness--which had been only natural under the circ.u.mstances; but when it was borne in upon her, in as delicate a way as he could convey it, that dishonor was involved in the matter, she had, after the first outburst, maintained a stony, ashen self-poise and control that were far from what he had expected. It was the most disagreeable task he had performed in many a day and he was heartily glad that it was over. Only his very great desire to ingratiate himself with these kings of finance, who had commissioned him to do their bidding, as well as the inclination to be of real service to his young and orphaned parishioner, had induced him to undertake the mission.

"You must rest and have an opportunity to adjust yourself to this new, unfortunate state of affairs," he continued. "I will call again to-morrow. If I can be of the slightest service to you, do not hesitate to let me know. It is a sad trial, but our Heavenly Father has tempered the wind to the shorn lamb; He has provided you with a protector in young Mr. Hamilton, and with kind, true friends who will see that no harm or deprivation comes to you. Try to feel that this added grief and trouble will, in the end, be for the best."

The alacrity with which he took his departure was painfully obvious, but Anita scarcely noticed it. Her mind was busy with the new, hideous thought, which had a.s.sailed her at that first hint of dishonesty on the part of her father--the thought that she was being made the victim of a gigantic conspiracy.

As soon as she found herself alone, she flew to the telephone. "Main, 2785," she demanded.... "Mr. Hamilton, please.... Is that you, Ramon?... Can you come to me at once? I need your advice and help.

Something has happened--something terrible! No, I cannot tell you over the 'phone. You will come at once? Yes, good-by, Ramon dear."

She hung up the receiver and paced the floor restlessly. Almost inconceivable as it had appeared to her consciousness under the first shock of the announcement, she might in time have come to accept the astounding fact of her father's insolvency, but that disgrace, dishonor, could have attached itself to his name--that he, the model of uprightness, of integrity could have been guilty of crooked dealing, of something which must for the honor of his memory be kept secret from the ears of his fellow-men, she could never bring herself to believe. Every instinct of her nature revolted, and underlying all her girlish unsophistication, a native shrewdness, inherited perhaps from her father, bade her distrust alike the worldly, self-interested pastor of the Church of St. James and the three so-called friends, who, although her father's a.s.sociates, had been his rivals, and who had offered with such astounding magnanimity to stand by her.

Why had they offered to help her? Was it really through tenderness and affection for her father's daughter, or was it to stay her hand and close her mouth to all queries?

Why did not Ramon come? Surely he should have been there before this.

What could be detaining him? She tried to be patient, to calm her seething brain while she waited, but it was no use. Hours pa.s.sed while she paced the floor, restlessly, and the dusk settled into the darkness of early winter. Wilkes came to turn on the lights, but she refused them--she could think better in the dark. The dinner-hour came and went and twice Ellen knocked anxiously upon the door, but Anita, torn with anxiety, would pay no heed. She had telephoned to Ramon's office, only to find that he had left there immediately upon receiving her message; to his home--he had not returned.

Nine o'clock sounded in silvery chimes from the clock upon the mantel; then ten and eleven and at length, just when she felt that she could endure no more, the front door-bell rang. A well-known step sounded upon the stairs, and Ramon entered.

With a little gasp of joy and relief she flung herself upon him in the darkness, but at an involuntary groan from him she recoiled.

"What is it, Ramon? What has happened to you?"

Without waiting for a reply she switched on the light.

Ramon stood before her, his face pale, his eyes dark with pain. One arm was in a sling and the thick hair upon his forehead barely concealed a long strip of plaster.

"Nothing really serious, dear. I had a slight accident--run down by a motor-car, just after leaving the office. My head was cut and I was rather knocked out, so they took me to a hospital. I would have come before, but they would not allow me to leave. I knew that you would be anxious because of my delay in coming, but I feared to add to your apprehension by telephoning to you from the hospital."

"But your arm--is it sprained?"

"Broken. I had a nasty crash--can't imagine how it was that I didn't see the car coming in time to avoid it. It was a big limousine with several men inside, all singing and shouting riotously, and the chauffeur, I think, must have been drunk, for he swerved the car directly across the road in my path. They never stopped after they had bowled me over, and no one seemed to know where they went."

"Then the police did not get their number?"

"No, but they will, of course. Not that I care, particularly; I'm lucky to have got off as lightly as I did. I might have been killed."

"It was a miracle that you were not, Ramon. Do you know what I believe? I don't think it was any accident, but a deliberate attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate you; to keep you from coming to me."