"His care and planning!" echoed Bertha, turning slowly toward him. "His! Did you not hear that Senator Blundel"—
"It was he who went to Senator Blundel," the professor answered. "It was he who spoke to the wife of the Secretary of State. I learned it from Mrs. Merriam. Out of all the pain we have borne, or may have to bear, the memory of Philip's faithful affection for us"—
He did not finish his sentence. Bertha stopped him. Her clenched hand had risen to her side, and was pressed against it.
"It was Philip who came to me in my trouble in Virginia," she said. "It was Philip who saw my danger and warned me of it when I would not hear him; but I could not know that I owed him such a debt as this!"
"We should never have known it from him," the professor replied. "He would have kept silent to the end."
Bertha looked at the clock upon the mantel.
"It is too late to send for him now," she said; "it is too late, and a whole night must pass before"—
"Before you say to him—what?" asked the professor.
"Before I tell him that Richard made a mistake," she answered, with white and trembling lips; "that he must take his money back—that I will not have it."
She caught her father's arm and clung to it, looking into his troubled face.