“Margey! What is it?”
“It’s from Mr. Corliss, Phil,” she answered quietly. “You are right, dear; you ought to know. Maybe we—I have done wrong in keeping it from you. Get down here beside me, Phil, and I will tell you everything.”
“Everything? Why—what—Margey; it isn’t true, is it? We’re not going to sell Elaine?” he cried sharply.
“Come,” she answered. He sank to his knees beside her chair and she put one arm over his shoulders, drawing him to her and laying her head against his. Phillip gazed white-faced at the flames. “Don’t say anything until I have finished dear,” she begged.
Then she told him.
He let her finish uninterrupted. Then he removed her arm quietly and arose and walked back into the shadows toward the doorway. She remained motionless and silent, her eyes on the sputtering flames, until a tear welled over and she brushed it away. Phillip came back and stood beside her, looking not at her but into the fire.
“You ought to have told me,” he said in low voice, “you ought to have told me.”
Margaret kept silence.
“I had a right to know,” he went on. And then, bitterly: “God! what a fool you’ve made me act, Margey! Squandering money up there while our home is being offered for sale to any stranger that can buy it! While you and mamma were struggling along—starving, for all I know——!”
“No, Phil!”