“Great heavens, man!” cried Mr. Stuart, breaking in fiercely, “you cannot mean to play your own sister such a low-down, scoundrelly trick! You will not pay back the money to her which you confess to owing, simply because she has not asked you for it before! How could she ask for it when you alone knew of the debt and kept the matter a secret? I am not so sure how your law would stand in such a case. A pretty story it will make to tell to the men who respect your business integrity. Mrs. Thurston shall have a lawyer to inquire into the situation immediately!”
A low knock sounded at the door. Before anyone could answer, Gladys Le Baron walked smilingly into the room. She looked in surprise at her father’s dark, revengeful face.
“Is anything the matter?” she inquired, her face sobering in an instant. “I wondered why father ran off by himself to see Aunt Mollie and Bab. I thought you would like to have me join you——”
“Go back to your apartment at once, Gladys!” interrupted her father sternly.
Mr. Stuart turned upon him. “Ralph Le Baron, I am going to do something, to-night, that I never expected to do in my life. I am going to expose a father to his own child. Wait here a minute, Gladys.”
Mr. Stuart then told Gladys the whole story. She stood listening in utter silence, her face crimson with blushes. Barbara could only look at her cousin through a mist of tears. When Mr. Stuart had ended his story, he said: “I am sorry indeed to tell you this, Gladys, but you must have learned it some day. I do not know whether your father is right in regard to the law in this matter, but Mrs. Thurston will carry the case to court.”
Gladys went over to her father, who had never raised his eyes to look at her, while Mr. Stuart was speaking, nor did he make any denial.
“Is it true, father?” she asked him at last.
“It is in a measure true, Gladys,” her father answered, “but it is purely a matter of business, which you cannot be expected to understand.”
Gladys put her head down on the arm of the sofa, where she now sat by her father, and wept bitterly. There was no other sound in the room, except an occasional suppressed sob from Mrs. Thurston. Bab was far too excited and too angry to cry!