x, for instance--for looks only. But it's
McDermott at the bottom; this same McDermott mother's always tellin' me
to imitate. Damned rascal! He's hated Mr. Ravenel and downed him
because be thinks you love him. Hit him when he's down, too!"

He was too excited to sit down, but walked back and forth, talking
loudly with excited gestures.

"Mr. Ravenel got back from Europe only three days ago, Tuesday, and in
the evening he sent for me to come to the Savoy. Miss Katrine, I've
never seen so dreadful a change in any one. He was like an old man. The
look of death was on him, and he said he'd sent for me to cheer him up
with my talk."

The boy was unable to continue for the sobs which shook him, and he
covered his face with his hands for a space before he could proceed.

"He'd found bad news in Europe, he told me, and wanted me to cheer him
up. I stayed the night with him, and in the morning when I called him he
did not answer, but just lay still and white, looking at me, unable to
speak. We got Dr. Johnston right away, and telegraphed Mr. Ravenel's
mother, who arrived the next day. Yesterday morning that hound Marix,
whose affairs are all mixed up with McDermott's, sent this note to me."

He extended a bit of yellow paper toward her, upon which was written:

"Sell Ravenel stocks within the next twenty-four hours, and hold
for the bottom to drop out of them."

"But I'll get even with him, this Marix!" Barney shrieked, in his rage.
"The only reason he gives me tips is because I know something
disgraceful of him! I'll publish him from one end of the country to the
other! I'll send him to the penitentiary! But I can't reach McDermott!
Oh," he cried, with clinched fists, "if I only could!"

"I can," Katrine said, quietly; asking, after a minute's doubting,
"You're sure it is Dermott McDermott who is at the foot of the trouble?"

"Who else has the money or the reasons to make such an attack?" he
demanded of her as an answer. "And Marix as good as told me McDermott
had some big deal on against the Ravenel interests last month."

She stood looking up at him, the folded yellow paper in her hand, driven
by race instinct to fight in the open, to get into the enemy's country,
especially if McDermott were the enemy.

With an angry light in her eyes she called for a storm-cloak and
demanded a cab, setting Nora and her remonstrances aside with abrupt
decision. Giving the cabman the address of McDermott's down-town
off