d
his real motive in such an investigation, and yet the lazy smile with
which he looked up from that record was disconcerting.

Bivens waited for him to speak. The moment was one big with fate.
Stuart was about to reach a decision that would make history. No one
knew so well its importance as the keen intellect that gleamed behind
the little black eyes watching with tireless patience.

Bivens was the one odd man in a thousand who knew that big events were
not to be found in earthquakes, tornadoes and battles. He had long
since learned that the events which shake the world are always found in
the silent hours when the soul of a single man says, "I will!"

Below he could hear the roar of the city's life. On the Curb brokers
were shouting their wares with their accustomed gusto. On the floor of
the Exchange the tide of business ebbed and flowed with the fierce
pulse of an apparently exhaustless strength. Men bought and sold with
no fear of to-morrow. Yet a single word from the lips of the tall,
clean-shaven young officer of the law and a storm would break which
might tear from the foundations institutions on whose solidity modern
civilization seemed to rest.

The silence at length became suffocating to Bivens. He moistened his
lips and drew his smooth fingers softly over his silky beard.

"Well, Jim," he said at length. "You are going to act?"

In the moment's pause the little swarthy body never moved, his breath
ceased and every nerve quivered with the strain and yet he betrayed
nothing to the man who sat before him, silent, thoughtful.

Stuart rose abruptly, his reply sharp and clear.

"Yes, I'm going to act."

"At once?"

"It's my duty."

Bivens grasped his hand.

"I congratulate you, Jim. You are going to do a big thing, one of the
biggest things in our history. You are going to teach the mighty that
the law is mightier. It ought to land you at the very top in politics
or any other old place you'd like to climb."

"That's something which doesn't interest me yet, Cal. The thing that
stuns me is that I've got to do so painful a thing. But my business is
the enforcement of justice. There's one thing I still can't
understand."

He paused and looked at Bivens curiously.

"What's that?" the financier softly asked.

"Why you of all men on earth should have put this information in my
hands. The honour of the achievement, if good shall come to the
country, is really yours, not mine."

"And you can't conce