"Why, Alec Stoker!" she cried, in amazement, "do you mean to say that you don't believe in Providence any more?" There was a look of horror on her face.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I've come to think it's a case of every fellow for himself; sink or swim—and if you're not strong enough to push to shore, it's drown and leave more room for the rest."
"Alec Mack—lin Sto—ker!" was all that Philippa could find breath to say at first. Presently she exclaimed, "I should think you'd be ashamed to talk so! Any boy that had such a grand old grandfather as you! He didn't have any better chance than you in the beginning, and had to struggle along for years. Look what a place he made for himself in the world!"
"That's all you know about it!" cried Alec, his hand trembling with an emotion he was trying hard to control. In that instant the razor slipped, slightly cutting his chin.
"Now!" he muttered, hastily tearing a bit of paper from the margin of a newspaper to stop the blood, and then rummaging in the wash-stand drawer for a piece of court-plaster. He was a long time adjusting it to his satisfaction, for the words he wanted to say would not take shape. He knew what he had to tell her would wound deeply, and he hesitated to begin. When he faced her again, his voice trembled with suppressed excitement. He spoke rapidly:
"I may as well out with it. You want to know why I didn't get that position in the bank? It is because my father, J. Stillwell Stoker, died behind the bars of a penitentiary! I'm the son of a jailbird—a defaulter and a forger! That's why the bank didn't want me. They'd had their fingers burned with him, and didn't want to risk another of that name. Thought there might be something in the blood, I suppose. That's where all grandfather's property went, to pay it back; all but this house and the little Aunt Eunice kept for our support. And that's why mother came back here with us and died of a broken heart! Now do you wonder that I can't believe in the eternal goodness when it starts me out in life handicapped like that? Do you blame me when I say I am going to get out of this town and go away to some place where I'll not have my father's disgrace thrown in my teeth every time I try to do anything worth while? No wonder I'm moody! No wonder I'm a pessimist when I think of the legacy he's saddled us with! Aunt Eunice thought she could always shield us from the knowledge of it, but she could no more do it than she could hide fire!"
Philippa sat on the bed as if stunned by the words flowing in such a vehement rush from her brother's lips. She was white and trembled. "O Alec," she gasped, with a shudder, "it can't be true!" Then, after a distressing silence, she sobbed, "Does everybody know it?"
"Everybody in the village now, but little Mack, and he'll have to be knocked flat with the fact some day, I suppose, just as we have been."
Philippa shivered and drew herself up into a disconsolate bunch against the foot-board. "To think of the way I've prided myself on our family!" she said, in a husky voice. "I've actually bragged of the Macklins and paraded the virtues of my ancestors."
Alec made no answer. Down-stairs the big kitchen clock slowly struck seven.