s
hewers of wood and drawers of water. Looking, and knowing not that in
their piteous cry for help and light was sounded his own dire peril.

The door opened, and the office boy announced the chief stenographer
of the great bank below. Ames looked up and silently nodded permission
for the man to enter.

"Mr. Ames," the clerk began, "I--I have come to ask a favor--a
great favor. I am having difficulty--considerable difficulty in
securing stenographers, but--I may say--my greatest struggle is
with myself. I--Mr. Ames, I can not--I simply can not continue to
hire stenographers at the old wage, nine dollars a week! I know how
these girls are forced to live. Mr. Ames, with prices where they
are now, they can not live on that! May I not offer them more? Say,
ten or twelve dollars to start with?"

Ames looked at him fixedly. "Why do you come to me with your request?"
he asked coldly. "Your superior is Mr. Doan."

"Yes, sir, I know," replied the young man with hesitation. "But--I--did
speak to him about it, and--he refused."

"I can do nothing, sir," returned Ames in a voice that chilled the
man's life-current.

"Then I shall resign, Mr. Ames! I refuse to remain here and hire
stenographers at that criminal wage!"

"Very well, sir," replied Ames in the same low, freezing tone. "Hand
your resignation to Mr. Doan. Good day, sir."

Again the guardian of the sanctity of private property was left alone.
Again, as he lapsed into dark revery, his thought turned back upon
itself, and began the reconstruction of scenes and events long since
shadowy dreams. And always as they built, the fair face of that young
girl appeared in the fabric. And always as he retraced his course, her
path crossed and crossed again his own. Always as he moved, her
reflection fell upon him--not in shadow, but in a flood of light,
exposing the secret recesses of his sordid soul.

He dwelt again upon the smoothness of his way in those days, before
her advent, when that group of canny pirates sat about the Beaubien's
table and laid their devious snares. It was only the summer before she
came that this same jolly company had merged their sacred trust assets
to draw the clouds which that autumn burst upon the country as the
worst financial panic it had known in years. And so shrewdly had they
planned, that the storm came unheralded from a clear sky, and at a
time when the nation was never more prosperous.

He laughed. It had been rich fun!

And then,