h the mirth of a vulture that has just
found a peculiarly revolting mass of carrion. "Fool that I was, not to
have thought of it before!"

Hastily he withdrew the letter from the envelope, opened it, and with
eager hand wrote three short sentences. He read these over, nodded
approval, and this time sealed and addressed the letter. Then he pushed
an electric button over the desk.

"Have this letter carried to this address at once," he commanded
Slawson. "Mr. Dillon Slade, 432 Highland Avenue, Rutherford, N. J.
See? Special delivery won't do. Have Sanders take it at once, in the
racer. No answer required. And after you've seen it start on its way,
come back here. I want to go to bed."

"Yes, sir. All right, sir," the valet bowed as he took the letter and
departed.

Ten minutes later, he was back again, helping old Flint undress.

Long after the Billionaire was in bed, in the big, luxurious room, with
its windows open toward the river--the room guarded all night by armed
men in the house and on the lawn outside--he lay there thinking of his
plot, chuckling to himself over its infernal cunning, and filled with
joy at the prospects now opening out ahead of him.

"Two birds with one stone, this time, for sure," he pondered. "Ha!
They'll try to beat old Isaac Flint at this or any other game, will
they? Man or woman, I don't care which, they'll never get away with
it--never, so long as life and breath remain in me!"

Then, soothed by these happy thoughts, and by a somewhat increased
dosage of his drug, the Billionaire gradually and contentedly fell
asleep, to dream of victory, and vengeance, and power.

Not in weeks had he slumbered so peacefully.

But for many hours after her father was asleep, Catherine sat at her
window, in a silk kimono, and with fevered pulses and dry eyes, with
throbbing heart and leaping pulses, thought long thoughts.

Sleepless she sat there, counting the hours tolled from the church-spire
in the town, below.

Morning still found her at the window, her brain afire, her heart laid
desolate and waste by the consuming struggle which, that night, had
swept and ravaged it.

CHAPTER XXI.

GABRIEL, GOOD SAMARITAN.

On the evening of July third, a week later, Gabriel Armstrong found
himself at Rochester, having tramped the hundred miles from Syracuse, by
easy stages. During this week, old Flint took good care not to reopen
the subject of the break with Waldron; and his daughter, t