In the little drawing-room, with its cheap paper and its old portraits,
Randolph Newbold faced his sister with the news. He knew her courage,
yet, even in the stress of his feeling, he wondered at it now; he felt
almost a pang of jealousy when he saw her take the blow as he had not
been able to take it.

"It is a death-sentence," he said, brokenly. "We have not the money to
send her south, and we cannot get it."

Katherine Newbold's hands clenched. "We will get it," she said. "I don't
know how just now, but we'll get it, Randolph. Mother's life shall not
go for lack of a few hundred dollars. Oh, think--just think--six years
ago it would have meant nothing. We went south every winter, and we
were all well. It is too cruel! But we'll get the money--you'll see."

"How?" the young man asked, bitterly. "The last jewel went so that we
could have Dr. Renfrew. There's nothing here to sell--nobody would buy
our ancestors," and he looked up mournfully at the painted figures on
the wall. The very thought seemed an indignity to those stately
personalities--the English judge in his wig, the colonial general in his
buff-faced uniform, harbored for a century proudly among their own, now
speculated upon as possible revenue. The girl put up a hand toward them
as if deprecating her brother's words, and his voice went on: "You know
the doctor practically told me this morning. I have had no hope all day,
and all day I have lived in hell. I don't know how I did my work.
To-night, coming home, I walked past Litterny's. The windows were
lighted and filled with a gorgeous lot of stones--there were a dozen big
diamond brooches. I stopped and looked at them, and thought how she used
to wear such things, and how now her life was going for the value of
one of them, and--you may be horrified, Katherine, but this is true: If