love, simple, trusting love, that put courage into her
sinking heart.

"Mother, it is very hard. I love you; I could die for you. I am so
forlorn. But I cannot, I dare not, do such a thing, such a dreadful
thing!"

She spoke brokenly, excitedly, she shuddered as she said the last words,
and her eyes were full of tears as she bent down and kissed her mother.

When she had gone, Mrs. Mavick sat long in her chair, motionless between
bewilderment and rage. In her heart she was saying, "The obstinate,
foolish girl must be brought to reason!"

A servant entered with a telegram. Mrs. Mavick took it, and held it
listlessly while the servant waited. "You can sign." After the door
closed--she was still thinking of Evelyn--she waited a moment before she
tore the envelope, and with no eagerness unfolded the official yellow
paper. And then she read:

"I have made an assignment. T. M."

A half-hour afterwards when a maid entered the room she found Mrs.
Mavick still seated in the armchair, her hands powerless at her side,
her eyes staring into space, her face haggard and old.

XXV

The action of Thomas Mavick in giving up the fight was as unexpected
in New York as it was in Newport. It was a shock even to those familiar
with the Street. It was known that he was in trouble, but he had been in
trouble before. It was known that there had been sacrifices, efforts at
extension, efforts at compromise, but the general public fancied that
the Mavick fortune had a core too solid to be washed away by any storm.
Only a very few people knew--such old hands as Uncle Jerry Hollowell,
and such inquisitive bandits as Murad Ault--that the house of Mavick
was a house of cards, and that it might go down when the belief was
destroyed that it was of granite.

The failure was not an ordinary sensation, and, according to the
excellent practices and differing humors of the daily newspapers, it was
made the most of, until the time came for the heavy weeklies to handle
it in its moral aspects as an illustration of modern civilization.
On the first morning there was substantial unanimity in assuming the
totality of the disaster, and the most ingenious artists in headlines
vied with each other in startling effects: "Crash in Wall Street."
"Mavick Runs Up the White Flag." "King of Wall Street Called Down."
"Ault Takes the Pot." "Dangerous to Dukes." "Mavick Bankrupt." "The
House of Mavick a Ruin." "Dukes and Drakes." "The Sea Goes Over Him."