There was just time for this to be ascertained and told of; just time for Sylvie to be named as an heiress, and then all at once something else came to light and was told of.

There was a mining speculation out in Colorado; there was Mr. Argenter’s signature for heavy security; there were memoranda of good safe stocks that had stood in his name a little while ago, and no certificates; there had been sales and sacrifices; going in deeper and to more certain loss, because of risk and danger already run.

Mr. Sherrett, senior, came home to dinner one day with news from the street.

“I’ve been very sorry to hear this morning that Argenter left things in a bad way, after all.  There won’t be much of anything forthcoming.  All swallowed up in mines and lands that have gone under.  That explains the sunstroke.  Half the cases are mere worry and drive.  In the old, calm times it was scarcely heard of.  Now, of a hot summer’s day in New York, a hundred or two men drop down.  And then they talk of unprecedented heat.  It is the heat and the ferment that have got into life.”

“Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish,” said the quiet voice of Aunt Euphrasia.  “How strange it is that men have never interpreted yet!”

“Ah, well!  I’m not sure about sins and judgments.  I don’t undertake to blame,” said Mr. Sherrett.  “People are born into a whirl, nowadays,—­the mass of them.  How can they help it?”

“I don’t know.  But we begin to see how true the words were, and in what pity they must have been spoken,” said Aunt Euphrasia.  “Tremendous physical forces have been grasped and set to work for mere material ends.  Spiritual uses and living haven’t kept pace.  And so there is a terrible unbalance, and the tower falls upon men’s heads.”

“Well, poor Argenter wasn’t a sinner above all that dwelt in Jerusalem.  And now, there are his wife and daughter.  I’m sorry for them.  They’ll find it a hard time.”

“I’m sorry, too,” said Aunt Euphrasia, with heart-gentleness.  She could not help seeing the eternal laws; she read the world and the Word with the inner illumining; but she was tender over all the poor souls who were not to blame for the whirl of fever and falseness they were born into; who could not or dared not fling themselves out of it upon the simple, steadfast, everlasting verities, and—­be broken; upon whom, therefore, these must fall, and grind them to powder.

“How will it be with them?” she asked.

“Do you mean there isn’t anything left, sir?  Nothing to carry out the will?”

Rodney had dropped his spoon and left his soup untasted, since his father first spoke:  he had lifted up his eyes quickly, and listened with his whole face, but he had kept silence until now.

Amy had looked up also; startled by the news, and waiting to hear more.  The young people were both too really interested, from their intimate knowledge of the first misfortune, to reply with any common “Is it possible?” to this.