to their offices. Prices leaped up. Trent's directors
ceased to worry him and wired invitations to luncheon at the West End.
The bulls were the sport of everybody. When closing-time came Trent had
made 100,000 pounds, and was looked upon everywhere as one of the rocks
of finance.

Only then he began to realise what the strain had been to him. His hard,
impassive look had never altered, he had been seen everywhere in his
accustomed City haunts, his hat a little better brushed than usual, his
clothes a little more carefully put on, his buttonhole more obvious and
his laugh readier. No one guessed the agony through which he had passed,
no one knew that he had spent the night at a little inn twelve miles
away, to which he had walked after nine o'clock at night. He had not
a single confidant, even his cashier had no idea whence came the large
sums of money which he had paid away right and left. But when it was
all over he left the City, and, leaning back in the corner of his little
brougham, was driven away to Pont Street. Here he locked himself in his
room, took off his coat and threw himself upon a sofa with a big cigar
between his teeth.

"If you let any one in to see me, Miles," he told the footman, "I'll
kick you out of the house." So, though the bell rang often, he remained
alone. But as he lay there with half-closed eyes living again through
the tortures of the last few hours, he heard a voice that startled him.
It was surely hers--already! He sprang up and opened the door. Ernestine
and Captain Francis were in the hall.

He motioned them to follow him into the room. Ernestine was flushed
and her eyes were very bright. She threw up her veil and faced him
haughtily. "Where is he?" she asked. "I know everything. I insist upon
seeing him at once."

"That," he said coolly, "will depend upon whether he is fit to see you!"

He rang the bell.

"Tell Miss Fullagher to step this way a moment," he ordered.

"He is in this house, then," she cried. He took no notice. In a moment
a young woman dressed in the uniform of one of the principal hospitals
entered.

"Miss Fullagher," he asked, "how is the patient?"

"We've had a lot of trouble with him, sir," she said significantly. "He
was terrible all last night, and he's very weak this morning. Is this
the young lady, sir?"

"This is the young lady who I told you would want to see him when you
thought it advisable."

The nurse looked doubtful. "Sir Henry is upstairs, si