It would be bad enough for her to learn of it in after years.

Thus Faynie settled the matter in her own mind, and her lips were sealed.

One morning Claire burst eagerly into the room, quite as soon as it was light.

“I was here late last night, but you were asleep, Faynie,” she said, “and I came away, though I could scarcely wait to tell you the wonderful news.”

“I think I can guess what it is,” replied Faynie, stroking the girl’s brown curls, “Your lover has declared his love for you and asked you to be his wife.  Is it not so?”

“You know it could be nothing else which could make me so very, very happy,” laughed Claire, her cheeks reddening.

“And you have answered—­yes?” asked Faynie.

“Of course I said yes,” responded Claire.

“And when is the wedding to take place?” queried Faynie, hoping with all her heart that this lover of whom the girl was so desperately fond loved Claire for herself—­not for the wealth she had fallen heir to.

Claire raised her bright, blushing face shyly, the dimples coming and going, making her rather plain little face almost beautiful at that moment.

“Mamma wanted the marriage put off for a year—­I am so young—­but Lester was so impatient that he would consent to no such arrangement.  He wants the ceremony performed with as little delay as is absolutely necessary.”

“Lester!” The name went through Faynie’s heart like the thrust of a knife.

For an instant every nerve in her body seemed to tremble and throb with quick, spasmodic pain, then to stand still as though the chill of death were creeping over her.  Her eyes grew dim with an awful darkness, and Claire’s voice seemed far off and indistinct.  Then the world faded from her altogether and she fell at Claire’s feet all in a little heap, in a dead swoon.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The proposal.

With all possible haste Claire summoned the housekeeper and gave Faynie into her charge.

It was more than disappointing to her to have Faynie lapse into unconsciousness just as she had reached the most interesting part of her story and was about to tell her how very romantically handsome Lester had proposed.  It had been just like a page from a French novel.

She little dreamed that the art of making love was an old one to him.

Kendale had gone to the Fairfax mansion with the express purpose of proposing marriage that evening, for only that day Mr. Conway, the old cashier, had told him confidentially that the affairs of the great dry goods concern were in a bad shape—­that the check for the hundred and twenty-five thousand which had just been paid out had crippled them sorely.

And, after a moment’s pause and with a husky voice, he added slowly:  “If something like three hundred thousand dollars is not raised within the next sixty days you are a ruined man, Mr. Armstrong.”