thing from me."

She looked at his still, pale face, and a sudden strong determination
to fight for him welled up in her heart. Her love was unjust, illegal,
outlawed; but it was love, just the same, and had much of the fiery
daring of the outcast from justice.

"I love you! I love you! I love you, Frank!" she declared. He unloosed
her hands.

"Run, sweet. To-morrow at four. Don't fail. And don't talk. And don't
admit anything, whatever you do."

"I won't."

"And don't worry about me. I'll be all right."

He barely had time to straighten his tie, to assume a nonchalant
attitude by the window, when in hurried Stener's chief clerk--pale,
disturbed, obviously out of key with himself.

"Mr. Cowperwood! You know that check I gave you last night? Mr. Stener
says it's illegal, that I shouldn't have given it to you, that he will
hold me responsible. He says I can be arrested for compounding a felony,
and that he will discharge me and have me sent to prison if I don't
get it back. Oh, Mr. Cowperwood, I am only a young man! I'm just really
starting out in life. I've got my wife and little boy to look after. You
won't let him do that to me? You'll give me that check back, won't you?
I can't go back to the office without it. He says you're going to fail,
and that you knew it, and that you haven't any right to it."

Cowperwood looked at him curiously. He was surprised at the variety and
character of these emissaries of disaster. Surely, when troubles chose
to multiply they had great skill in presenting themselves in rapid
order. Stener had no right to make any such statement. The transaction
was not illegal. The man had gone wild. True, he, Cowperwood, had
received an order after these securities were bought not to buy or sell
any more city loan, but that did not invalidate previous purchases.
Stener was browbeating and frightening his poor underling, a better man
than himself, in order to get back this sixty-thousand-dollar check.
What a petty creature he was! How true it was, as somebody had remarked,
that you could not possibly measure the petty meannesses to which a fool
could stoop!

"You go back to Mr. Stener, Albert, and tell him that it can't be done.
The certificates of loan were purchased before his order arrived, and
the records of the exchange will prove it. There is no illegality here.
I am entitled to that check and could have collected it in any qualified
court of law. The man has gone out of his head. I ha