ston," she said.

"Preston!" The name came sharply from Eldon Parr's lips. "What about
him? Speak, can't you?"

"He died this evening," said Alison, simply.

Hodder plainly heard the ticking of the clock on the mantel.... And the
drama that occurred was the more horrible because it was hidden; played,
as it were, behind closed doors. For the spectators, there was only the
black wall, and the silence. Eldon Parr literally did nothing,--made no
gesture, uttered no cry. The death, they knew, was taking place in
his soul, yet the man stood before them, naturally, for what seemed an
interminable time....

"Where is he?" he asked.

"At Mr. Bentley's, in Dalton Street." It was Alison who replied again.

Even then he gave no sign that he read retribution in the coincidence,
betrayed no agitation at the mention of a name which, in such a
connection, might well have struck the terror of judgment into his
heart. They watched him while, with a firm step, he crossed the room and
pressed a button in the wall, and waited.

"I want the closed automobile, at once," he said, when the servant came.

"I beg pardon; sir, but I think Gratton has gone to bed. He had no
orders."

"Then wake him," said Eldon Parr, "instantly. And send for my
secretary."

With a glance which he perceived Alison comprehended, Hodder made his
way out of the room. He had from Eldon Parr, as he passed him, neither
question, acknowledgment, nor recognition. Whatever the banker
might have felt, or whether his body had now become a mere machine
mechanically carrying on a life-long habit of action, the impression was
one of the tremendousness of the man's consistency. A great effort was
demanded to summon up the now almost unimaginable experience of his
confidence; of the evening when, almost on that very spot, he had
revealed to Hodder the one weakness of his life. And yet the effort was
not to be, presently, without startling results. In the darkness of the
street the picture suddenly grew distinct on the screen of the rector's
mind, the face of the banker subtly drawn with pain as he had looked
down on it in compassion; the voice with its undercurrent of agony:

"He never knew how much I cared--that what I was doing was all for him,
building for him, that he might carry on my work."

V

So swift was the trolley that ten minutes had elapsed, after Hodder's
arrival, before the purr of an engine and the shriek of a brake broke
the stillness of upper