etter, though, when you talk sense."

"I am sorry, Harry," she returned. "Please don't be cross with me! Go
now,--please go!"

And something forced the man to silence. Slowly, he left the room. The
woman locked the door. Returning to the window, she fell on her knees,
and stretched her hands imploringly toward the tiny spot of light that
still shone against the dark shadow of the mountain-side.

Between the mighty walls of tree-clad hills that lifted their solemn
crests into the midnight sky, the dark river poured the sombre strength
of its innumerable currents,--terrible in its awful power; dreadful, in
its mysterious and unseen forces; irresistible in its ceaseless, onward
rush to the sea of its final and infinite purpose!

And here and there on the restless, ever-moving surface of the shadowy,
never-ending flood twinkled the reflection of a star.

CHAPTER XXII.

AT THE EMPIRE CONSOLIDATED SAVINGS BANK.

The President of the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank looked up from the
papers on his desk as his secretary entered from the adjoining room and
stood before him.

"Well, George?"

The secretary smiled as he spoke: "Mr. Ward, there is an old lady out
here who insists that you will see her. The boys passed her on to me,
because,--well, she is not the kind of woman that can be refused. She
has no card, but her name is Wakefield. She--"

The dignified President of the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank
electrified his secretary by springing from his chair like a schoolboy
from his seat at the tap of the teacher's dismissing bell. "Auntie Sue!
I should say she couldn't be refused! Where is she?" And before the
secretary could collect his startled thoughts to answer, Homer T. Ward
was out of the room.

When the smiling secretary, the stenographers, and other attending
employees had witnessed a meeting between their dignified chief and
the lovely old lady, which strengthened their conviction that the great
financier was genuinely human, President Ward and Auntie Sue disappeared
into the private office.

"George," said Mr. Ward, as he closed the door of that sacred inner
sanctuary of the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank, "remember I am not in
to any one;--from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Sheriff, I am not
in."

"I understand, sir," returned the still smiling George. And from that
moment until Homer T. Ward should open the door, nothing short of a
regiment could have interrupted the interview bet