.

Herron prided himself upon his acute conscience and his nice sense of
honor. He felt that here was a chance to wreak vengeance upon
Dumont--or rather, as he put it to himself, to bring Dumont to an
accounting for his depravity. Just as Dumont maintained with himself a
character of honesty by ignoring all the dubious acts which his agents
were forced to do in carrying out his orders, so Herron kept peace with
a far more sensitive conscience by never permitting it to look in upon
his mind or out through his eyes.

"Frightful! Frightful!" he exclaimed, after a long pause in which his
immured and blindfold conscience decided that he could afford to
support Fanshaw. "I knew he was a rascal in business--but THIS!"

There was genuine emotion in his voice and in his mind. He was strict
to puritanic primness in his ideals of feminine morality; nor had he
been relaxed by having a handsome wife, looking scarce a day over
thirty behind her veil or in artificial light, and fond of gathering
about her young men who treated him as if he were old and "didn't
count."

"You are certain, Fanshaw?"

"I tell you, he hinted it himself," replied Fanshaw. "And instantly my
eyes were opened to scores of damning confirmations." He struck his
forehead with his open hand. "How blind I've been!" he exclaimed.

Herron shook his head sympathetically and hastened on to business.

"WE can't handle your case," he said. "But Best and Sharpless, on the
floor above, are reliable. And I'll be glad to help you with advice.
I feel that this is the beginning of Dumont's end. I knew such
insolent wickedness could not have a long course."

Fanshaw drew Herron on to tell the story of his wrongs--the
"swindling." Before it was ended Fanshaw saw that he had found a man
who hated Dumont malignantly and was thirsting for vengeance. This
encouraged him to unfold his financial difficulties. Herron listened
sympathetically, asked ingeniously illuminating questions, and in the
end agreed to tide him over. He had assured himself that Fanshaw had
simply undertaken too large an enterprise; the advance would be well
secured; he would make the loan in such a way that he would get a sure
profit, and would also bind Fanshaw firmly to him without binding
himself to Fanshaw. Besides--"It wouldn't do for him to go to the wall
just now."

Arm in arm they went up to Best and Sharpless' to take the first steps
in the suit. Together they went down-town to