elve o'clock. I'm sailing for Europe day
after to-morrow."

A sudden click at the other end and he was cut off. His experienced ear
told him it was not an accident. The sound could only have been made by
the person to whom he was talking quickly hanging up the receiver. He
waited a moment and called Nan back to the telephone.

"You understand, Nan?"

"Yes, we were cut off."

"Tell him I'll be up early in the morning, by ten o'clock, surely. Good
night."

The answer was the merest whisper:

"Good night."

It was just dawn when Stuart's telephone rang and he leaped from bed
startled at the unusual call.

He seized the receiver and could hear no voice. Apparently some one was
fumbling at the other end and he felt the impression of a woman's
sleeve or dress brushing the instrument.

"Well, well," he cried in quick, impatient tones, "what is it? What's
the matter?"

"Is that you?" came the faint echo of a woman's voice.

"Who is this, please?"

"Jim, don't you know my voice! It's Nan!"

"I didn't recognize it. You spoke so queerly. What is it, Nan?"

"For heaven's sake come at once. Cal was taken dangerously ill at two
o'clock. The doctors have been with him every moment. He doesn't get
any better. He keeps calling for you. He insisted on my telephoning.
I'm frightened. I want to see you. Please come?"

"At once, of course, I'll be there in half an hour--three quarters at
the most."

"Thank you," she gasped, and hung up her receiver.

Stuart's cab whirled up town through rivers of humanity pouring down to
begin again the round of another day. At Fourteenth, Forty-second,
Fifty-ninth, Sixty-sixth and Seventy-second the crash and roar of the
subterraneous rivers caught his ear as the black torrents of men and
women swirled and eddied and poured into the depths below. In all the
hurrying thousands not one knew or cared a straw whether the man of
millions in his silent palace on the Drive lived or died. To-morrow
morning it would be the same, no matter what his fate, and the next day
and the next.

"A strange old world!" he mused as his cab swung into the Drive and
dashed up to the great house. A liveried servant opened the iron gates
wide. He was evidently expected. The chauffeur threw the little cab up
the steep turn with a rush. He sprang out and entered the hall with
quick silent tread.

The house was evidently in hopeless confusion. Servants wandered in
every direction without order. Doctor after