behind the age in this fierce struggle for supremacy? The woman who
sits before you is yours if you only dare to tear her from the man who
holds her by the fiction of dying customs!"

He felt his heart throb as another voice within cried:

"Yet why should I, an heir to immortality, whose will can shape a
world, why should I live a beast of prey with my hand against every
man?"

The answer was the memory of dirty finger nails closing on his throat
while a mob of howling fools surged over his body and cursed him for
trying to save them from themselves. Again he heard a woman's voice as
she held his head close, whispering:

"I've something to say to you, Jim!"

His lips tightened with sudden decision. The golden gates of the
forbidden land swung open and his soul entered.

CHAPTER XIV

AN AFTERMATH

The day following Bivens's offer to Stuart was made memorable by a
sinister event in Union Square.

A mass meeting of the unemployed had been called to protest against
their wrongs and particularly to denounce the men who had advanced the
price of bread by creating a corner in wheat.

On his way down town Stuart read with astonishment that Dr. Woodman
would preside over this gathering. He determined to go. As he hurried
through the routine work of his office, giving his orders for the day,
he received a telephone call from Nan, asking him to accompany her to
this meeting.

"I don't think you ought to go," he answered emphatically.

"Why?"

"Well, there might be a riot for one thing."

"I'm not afraid."

"And you might hear some very plain talk about your husband."

"That's exactly why I wish to go!"

"I don't think it wise," Stuart protested.

"I'm going, anyhow. Won't you accompany me?"

"If you will go--yes."

"That's a good boy. I'll send one of my cars to the office for you
immediately."

An hour later when Stuart, seated by Nan's side, reached Union Square,
the automobile was stopped by the police and turned into Seventeenth
Street.

Every inch of space in the Square seemed blocked by a solid mass of
motionless humanity. Stuart left the car in Seventeenth Street and
succeeded finally in forcing a way through the crowd to a position
within a hundred feet of the rude platform that had been erected for
the orators. The scene about the stand bristled with policemen, most of
them apparently picked men, their new uniforms glittering in the sun
and their polished clubs flashing defiance as