ss rejoiced to know
that this particular woman, with the tired-looking eyes, had not "got
hurt," as he would have put it.

"It's been a bad business all round," he went on, waxing confidential as
he was prone to do. "Why, I knew a man that bought twenty thousand
shares at a dollar-ten three weeks ago, just before she closed down, and
he's never had the sand to sell."

"What could he get to-day?" Marietta asked. Her voice sounded in her
ears strange and far away.

"Well, I don't know. I was offered some at six cents, but I don't know
anybody that wants it."

Marietta's throat felt parched and dry, and now there was a singing in
her ears; but she gave no outward sign.

"Pretty hard on some folks," she remarked.

"I should say so!"

There was a din in her ears all that afternoon, which was perhaps a
fortunate circumstance, for it shut out all possibility of thought. It
was not until night came that the din stopped, and her brain became
clear again,--cruelly, pitilessly clear.

Deep into the night she lay awake tormenting herself with figures. How
hideous, how intolerable they were! They passed and repassed in her
brain in the uncompromising search-light of conscience, like malicious,
mouthing imps. They were her debts and losses, they stood for disgrace
and penury, they menaced the very foundation of her life and happiness.

Doubtless the man who had put many thousands into the "Horn of Plenty,"
and had lacked the "sand" to sell, would have wondered greatly that a
fellow-creature should be suffering agony on account of a few hundred
dollars. Yet he, in his keenest pang of disappointment, knew nothing
whatever of the awful word "ruin"; while Marietta, staring up into the
darkness, was getting that lesson by heart.

The town-clock striking three seemed to pierce her consciousness and
relieve the strain. She wished the sofa she was lying upon were not so
hard and narrow; perhaps if she were more comfortable she might be able
to sleep, and then, in the morning, she might see light. Of course there
was light, somewhere, if she could only find it; but who ever found the
light, lying on a hard sofa, in pitchy darkness? Perhaps if she were to
get up and move about things would seem less intolerable. And with the
mere thought of action the tired frame relaxed, the straining eyes were
sealed with sleep, the curtain of unconsciousness had fallen upon the
troubled stage of her mind.

And when, at dawn, Jim opened frighte