"Oh Ethel! Oh Alaric!"
Alaric was at her side in a moment. He was genuinely alarmed.
Ethel moved slowly across, thinking, vaguely, that something must have disagreed with her mother.
"What is it, mater?" cried Alaric.
"Mother!" said Ethel, with as nearly a tone of emotion as she could feel.
"We're ruined!" sobbed Mrs. Chichester.
"Nonsense!" said the bewildered son.
"Really?" asked the placid daughter.
"Our bank has failed! Every penny your poor father left me was in it," wailed Mrs. Chichester. "We've nothing. Nothing. We're beggars."
A horrible fear for a moment gripped Alaric—the dread of poverty. He shivered! Suppose such a thing should really happen? Then he dismissed it with a shrug of his shoulders. How perfectly absurd! Poverty, indeed! The Chichesters beggars? Such nonsense! He turned to his mother and found her holding out a letter and a newspaper. He took them both and read them with mingled amazement and disgust. First the headline of the newspaper caught his eye: