Just before noon, after his encounter with Mrs. Gray, he came down stairs and boldly, for the first time in days, sought out Peggy.  There was the old smile in his eye and the old heartiness in his voice when he came upon her in the library.  She was not reading.  Books, pleasures and all the joys of life had fled from her mind and she thought only of the disaster that was coming to the boy she had always loved.  His heart smote him as he looked into the deep, somber, frightened eyes, running over with love and fear for him.

“Peggy, do you think I’m worth anything more from your mother?  Do you think she will ask me to live here any longer?” he asked, steadily, taking her hand in his.  Hers was cold, his as hot as fire.  “You know what you said away off yonder somewhere, that she’d let me live here if I deserved it.  I am a pauper, Peggy, and I’m afraid I’ll—­I may have to get down to drudgery again.  Will she turn me out?  You know I must have somewhere to live.  Shall it be the poorhouse?  Do you remember saying one day that I’d end in the poorhouse?”

She was looking into his eyes, dreading what might be seen in them.  But there was no gleam of insanity there, there was no fever; instead there was the quiet smile of the man who is satisfied with himself and the world.  His voice bore traces of emotion, but it was the voice of one who has perfect control of his wits.

“Is it all—­gone, Monty?” she asked, almost in a whisper.

“Here is the residue of my estate,” he said, opening his purse with steady fingers.  “I’m back to where I left off a year ago.  The million is gone and my wings are clipped.”  Her face was white, her heart was in the clutch of ice.  How could he be so calm about it, when for him she was suffering such agony?  Twice she started to speak, but her voice failed her.  She turned slowly and walked to the window, keeping her back to the man who smiled so sadly and yet so heartlessly.

“I didn’t want the million, Peggy,” he went on.  “You think as the rest do, I know, that I was a fool to act as I did.  It would be rank idiocy on my part to blame you any more than the others for thinking as you do.  Appearances are against me, the proof is overwhelming.  A year ago I was called a man, to-day they are stripping me of every claim to that distinction.  The world says I am a fool, a dolt, almost a criminal—­but no one believes I am a man.  Peggy, will you feel better toward me if I tell you that I am going to begin life all over again?  It will be a new Monty Brewster that starts out again in a few days, or, if you will, it shall be the old one—­the Monty you once knew.”

“The old Monty?” she murmured softly, dreamily.  “It would be good to see him—­so much better than to see the Monty of the last year.”

“And, in spite of all I have done, Peggy, you will stand by me?  You won’t desert me like the rest?  You’ll be the same Peggy of the other days?” he cried, his calmness breaking down.