He turned to Percy to ask:

"You knew this story?"

"Not until last evening, sir. Although I am told that the treachery of Edgar to James Purcell is ancient history in the Street."

"James Purcell was a friend of my youth," said the lawyer. "I must look into this."

The financier heard the lawyer's words, but failed to catch their meaning.

"That's just what you will do-look into it. It's conspiracy, that's what it is, and we'll have them in jail for it. I'll make a vigorous war of it, now that it is opened."

Grasping his hat and cane, the magnate strode out of the room.

Mrs. Hilary Stanford turned a very woebegone face on Percy Dunbar, as she said:

"The great day of triumph, so long anticipated, has come and passed, and there seems to be so little of it."

The great lawyer looked at the woman sorrowfully for a moment, and then said:

"If it be satisfaction, you may find it in the fact that C. C. Edgar has lost a million in his recent operation, and the control of the Universal. I betray no confidence of a client, for the information comes to me from an outside source. But I very much doubt whether your sacrifice of womanliness is justified at that."

Percy turned angrily to speak, while Mrs. Stanford made a despairing gesture.

"Do not misunderstand me," hastily interposed the lawyer. "I do not intend to reflect upon Mrs. Stanford. Her provocation may have been great, but I have the old-fashioned notion, I suppose, that women should suffer in silence. Now let me dismiss you both, for I have no business with either of you now."

CHAPTER XIV

ANOTHER FLIGHT IN HIGH FINANCE

THE efforts made by C. C. Edgar to wrest victory from the jaws of defeat had been futile.

Through the cajoleries of Mrs. Hilary Stanford he had hoped to induce Dunbar to abandon his new allies and return to his old allegiance, but he had seen that plan dissolve in the revelation that his chosen agent, moved by a determined spirit of revenge, instead, had exercised her fascinations to his undoing.

The financier had been confounded. Not because he had been overreached in a transaction. Such accidents had not been so uncommon in his long experience, but because he had been so completely overturned by persons he had regarded as impotent, whom he believed to be bound in his chains and, whose obedient services he could command by occasionally throwing them a bone or two. That a mere boy and a flighty woman should have dared to brave his undoubted power was the incomprehensible thing. It had been many

years since any one in close association had dared to oppose him. And this boy had even dared to lay violent hold on him when he had raised his stick at the flighty woman. He had told Van Zandt that he would give a good round sum to know the real relations between Percy and Mrs. Stanford, but the broker had shaken his head and warned him that he was on the wrong line there.

Nor had the threats he had engaged counsel to direct at Dunbar been more effective. Apparently, Dunbar, in some mysterious manner, had wriggled out of the trap in which he, Edgar, supposed he securely held the treasurer of the company. Carmack, the old chairman of the finance committee, was unable to explain it, and the conclusion was Carmack was a fool.

An unknown stockholder had started out from a dark corner of nowhere in an appeal to the Attorney-General for the appointment of a receiver for the Universal, on allegations of mismanagement, unlawful proceedings and insolvency, but that official had denied the application, on the ground that his own knowledge of the company assured him that the charges could not be sustained. Thus only was the hand of Doyle Mason seen, though even then it was not apparent to Edgar.

After this check Edgar seemed to retire

The

within his shell. Percy, Anstruthers and
Doyle Mason were wary and watchful.
latter had become interested by investment in
800 shares. And Mrs. Stanford, who, despite
Percy's advice, had purchased 2,000 shares,
was regretting that she had so inopportunely
seized her day of triumph, as she might have
been eyes and ears for her allies in the camp
of the enemy. The papers insisted that Ed-
gar had come out of the stock campaign a
heavy winner by becoming a ferocious bull at
the right moment. The Universal party had
no means of confirming the accuracy of Mr.
Durbin's information that Edgar had lost a
million in his campaign. It hoped that the
newspaper story was true, as then Edgar
would have less incentive to schemes of re-
prisal.

Both Mr. Anstruthers and Mrs. Stanford insisted, however, that whether Edgar was a winner or loser he would not forego his plans of vengeance, for they thought his pride had been hurt. So they urged that they must be always on guard against a blow struck from an unexpected quarter. Percy took hold of matters with a firm hand and swept from the office all employes supposed to be in any way identified with the Edgar interest.

In the meantime, the mysterious pressure having been relaxed, as mysteriously, the canceled

1