he room gleamed a huge electric sign, "Happy New
Year"--and lying hunched forward with his face on the keyboard of the
instrument sagged the unmoving figure of Paul Burton.

At once the lights went out again, leaving the place dark, and the voice
of the manager was heard from the platform, a little strained in tone as
he sought to conceal the tragedy which, should it become known, would
end the night's profit for his establishment.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he lied resourcefully, "I hope you will all
keep your seats and indulge the management for a few moments. A fuse has
burned out, but it will at once be remedied. Our pianist, I will add,
has suffered a fainting spell, but is in no danger."

When the lights came on again, the figure at the piano was no longer
there. Just back of the platform was a door used by the cabaret
performers, and through this he had been borne.

But the faintness which had come upon Paul Burton was the faintness of
death, and there were those among the merry-makers who could not forget
the grotesque attitude of which they had caught a glimpse, and who found
subsequent merry-making impossible.

"Notify the coroner," ordered the policeman who had come in from the
corner through a service entrance. "This is a case for him."

The manager bent an ear toward the outer door and recognized that there
had been no resumption of the saturnalian chorus between his walls. "Mr.
Thayre," he commented bitterly to the guest who had followed into the
private room, "your friend there has put New Year's eve on the blink for
my place--this thing costs me thousands."

"Who's the dead man?" demanded the officer bluntly, and when Thayre
replied with two words, "Paul Burton," he gave a long, low whistle of
astonishment. The name of Burton was not yet forgotten in New York.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Mary Burton was returning from a Sixth-avenue delicatessen shop with the
bottle of milk and box of crackers which constituted the marketing for
tomorrow morning's breakfast. She felt very faint and unspeakably sick
at heart. There was no longer even a trivial thing with which to
interest the pawnbroker. She had had little sleep for many nights and
her temples throbbed with pain. She had been trying to think out some
way to mend their misfortunes, and each day brought her nearer the point
where the grinding struggle must end in starvation.

"If it were only myself," she said bitterly as she turned the corner
under t