"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:
"Failure of Gifford's Bank."
Then he looked at the letter:
"Gifford's Bank suspended business yesterday!" Back his eye
travelled to the paper: "Gifford's Bank has closed its doors!" He
was quite unable, at first, to grasp the full significance of the
contents of that letter and newspaper. He turned to Ethel:
"Eh?" he gasped.
"Pity," she murmured, trying to find a particular piece of music
amongst the mass on the piano.
"We're ruined!" reiterated Mrs. Chichester.
Then the real meaning of those cryptic headlines and the business-
like letter broke in on Alaric.
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