The news of the failure of the Great Blankshire Bank spread rapidly, and the terrible line on the contents bill of the evening papers had a dread significance for hundreds. To many a home it was the herald of ruin and despair.

The Great Blankshire Bank had been established for years, and was looked upon as a model of stability and sound finance.

It was one of those old-fashioned banks, in which the liability is unlimited, but its shares were reckoned as good as Bank of England notes. People would as soon have expected to hear of Rothschild pawning his watch to get a dinner as that the Great Blankshire Bank had come to grief.

The liabilities were enormous; but the first thought was for the unhappy shareholders. The depositors were safe. They would be paid to the uttermost farthing. The loss would strip the shareholders to the skin, and their garments would be divided among the creditors.

No wonder the unhappy people on whom the blow fell reeled beneath the force of it. It was so sudden, so crushing, that it wrung something like a cry of agony from the victims.

Men, who in the morning were prosperous citizens, sought their couches that night with bankruptcy staring them in the face.

Well-to-do tradesmen, whose business gave them no uneasiness, and who believed themselves safe from all commercial disasters, found themselves suddenly called upon to part with the whole of their capital and trade as best they could on an empty exchequer.

On all classes of the community the blow fell heavily, but most cruelly, perhaps, on men who had, after a long and laborious career, retired with the fruits of their honest industry, hoping to spend the remainder of their days in ease and comfort.

It was after tea on the fatal evening, and Mr. Adrian was deep in his favourite volumes, his wife and daughter and little Gertie sitting in their accustomed places.

A man passed along the quiet street shouting something.

All they heard at first was:

‘Speshul’dition.’

‘What are they crying the papers for to-night, I wonder?’ said Mrs. Adrian, lifting her head from her work and listening.

‘Some catchpenny, I suppose,’ answered her husband. ‘A fearful murder in America, I expect, or a great earthquake in Van Diemen’s Laud. Listen!’

The man was coming nearer and nearer. Presently he seemed to be opposite their door. They could almost hear the words shouted in the harsh broken voice of the London street hawker:

‘Speshul’dition! Bank city! Failer Great Blankshur Bank!’

John Adrian doubted his ears. He had not caught the slurred words aright.

He started up from his chair, his face pale and his limbs trembling, and almost ran to the front door.

The man was passing. He hailed him and took a paper. He handed him the first coin in his pocket. It was a shilling. In his excitement he clutched the paper and closed the door, never waiting for his change.

With trembling hands he unfolded the paper, and scanned the contents in the flickering light of the hall lamp.

There was no need to look far.

There it was in huge letters—letters of flame that seared his heart:

‘TERRIBLE COMMERCIAL DISASTER.

FAILURE OF THE GREAT BLANKSHIRE BANK.

ENORMOUS LIABILITIES.’

John Adrian read the fatal words. The heading was enough. He had no need to read the details that followed.

The letters swam before his eyes; a faint, sick feeling seized him, and with a groan he reeled forward.

‘Father!’

Ruth had noticed her father’s strange look as he left the sitting-room, and had followed him.

She ran forward and caught him in her arms, or he would have fallen.

‘Father, you are ill? she eried. ‘What is it? Let me send for a doctor!’

John Adrian had recovered the first shook, and had steadied himself.

‘A doctor’s no good. My poor Ruth!’ he groaned. He held the paper towards his daughter, and she knew the worst.

Her father was a shareholder in the ruined bank!

‘It’s ruin, child!’ he groaned. ‘Ruin! The saving of a lifetime swept away! We are beggars!’

‘Oh, father, don’t despair!’ whispered Ruth, trembling. ‘It may not be so bad as you think.’

‘It’s ruin, I tell you!’ he cried, almost savagely. ‘We shall be houseless beggars! Oh, my God! my God!’

‘Poor mother!’ sighed Ruth. ‘It will break her heart!’

John Adrian started.

‘Hush!’ he said, seizing Ruth’s arm. ‘Keep it from her as long as we can.’

The room door was closed.

While they spoke it opened and Mrs. Adrian came out.

‘What ever are you two doing in the hall?’ she asked, snappishly. ‘What’s in the paper, after all?’

‘Didn’t you hear what the man said, mother?’ asked Ruth, eagerly.

‘No; I can’t hear anything for my cold. What was it?—a murder?’

‘Yes, my dear,’ answered John Adrian, keeping his white face turned away. ‘A murder—an awful murder!’

‘Where?’

‘In Patagonia.’

John Adrian tried to give a little laugh, but it was a ghastly failure, and ended in a groan.

‘I thought it was a catchpenny. And the idea of your going rushing out catching your death to buy that rubbish! Murder in Patagonia, indeed! The Patagonians’ll be the death of you before you’re done.’

Mrs. Adrian went back to her chair. Mr. Adrian made some excuse and went upstairs to his room, bidding Ruth go in and talk to her mother.

When he came down he was still pale, and his face had a look of agony upon it which he could not well banish. But he complained of sudden toothache, and Mrs. Adrian went to sleep that night in happy ignorance of the awful misfortune which had fallen upon them.

Ere she went to rest Ruth wrote a note to Marston, and sent the servant with it to the post.

‘Let me see you at once. A great trouble has come upon us.’ That was all she wrote. Her heart was too full, her mind too disturbed, to write down in black and white the ghastly truth that her father was ruined, and that they were beggared by the failure of the Great Blankshire Bank.