"I do see how bad it is, papa. I admit it's worse than I thought. But all the same I know that when people have high reputations other people trust them and help them through. Banks do it, don't they? Isn't that partly what they're for? It was Pierpoint & Hargous who helped Lulu Sentner's father. They stood behind him. She told me so. I'm positive that with your name they'd do as much for you. You take a gloomy outlook because you're ill. But there's no one in Boston—no one in New England—more esteemed or trusted. When one can say, 'All is lost save honor,' then, relatively speaking, there's very little lost at all."
He got up from the table and went to his room. After these words it was physically impossible for him to tell her anything more. He had thought of a means which might bring the fact home to her through the day by a process of suggestion. Packing a small bag with toilet articles and other necessaries, he left it in a conspicuous place.
"I want Reynolds to give it to my messenger in case I send for it," he explained to her, when he had descended to the dining-room again.
She was still sitting where he left her, at the head of the table, pale, pensive, but not otherwise disturbed.
"Does that mean that you're not coming home to-night?"
"I—I don't know. Things may happen to—to prevent me."
"Where should you go?—to New York?"
"No; not to New York."
He half hoped she would press the question, but when she spoke it was only to say:
"I hope you'll try to come home, because I'm sure you're not well. Of course I understand it, now I know you've had so much to upset you. But I wish you'd see Dr. Scott. And, papa," she added, rising, "don't have me on your mind—please don't. I'm quite capable of facing the world without money. You mayn't believe it, but I am. I could do it—somehow. I'm like you. I've a great deal of self-reliance, and a great deal of something else—I don't quite know what—that has never been taxed or called on. It may be pride, but it isn't only pride. Whatever it is, I'm strong enough to bear a lot of trouble. I don't want you to think of me at all in any way that will worry you."