ze, unable to comprehend where it
had all gone--this fortune that was on his fingers yesterday. Yesterday!
If he had only closed up yesterday! Then through the haze of his numbed
sense of loss came a poignant, terrifying recall to actuality. He stood
pledged to Drake for the amount of $50,000, and he could not make good
even a third! If the pool had been wiped out--and he had slight hopes of
saving anything there--he would have to procure $35,000 somewhere,
somehow, or face to Drake and his own self-respect that he could not
redeem his own word. What could he say, what excuse offer! If the pool
had collapsed--he was dishonored.

The realization came slowly. For a long while, sitting in the embrasure
of the bay window--his forehead against the cold panes, it seemed to him
incredible the way he had gone these last six months; as though it had
all been a fever that had peopled his horizon with unreal figures,
phantasies of hot dreams.

But the unblinkable, waking fact was there. His word had been pledged
for $50,000 to Drake, to the father of the girl he was to marry. Marry!
At the thought he laughed aloud bitterly. That, too, was a thing that
had vanished in the bubble of dreams. He thought of his father, to whom
he would have to go; but his pride recoiled. He would never go to him
for aid--a failure and a bankrupt. Rather beg Drake on his knees for
time to work out the debt than that!

"How did I do it? What possessed me! What madness possessed me!" he said
wearily again and again.

At eight o clock, when all the high electric lights had come out about
the blazing window of the court, recalled by the sounds of music from
the glass-paneled restaurant he went out for dinner, wondering why his
friends had not returned. At ten when he came back after long tramping
of the streets, a note was on the table, in Granning's broad
handwriting.

Hoped to catch you. Fred's gone off on a tear; God knows
where he is. Roscy and I have been trying to locate him all
day. Hope you pulled through, old boy.

GRANNING.

At twelve o clock, still miserably alone, tortured by remorse and the
thought of the wreck he had unwittingly brought his chums, he could bear
the suspense of evasion no longer. He went up to Drake's to learn the
worst, steeled to a full confession.

In the hall, as he waited chafing and miserable, Fontaine, Gunther's
right-hand partner, passed out hurriedly, jaws set, oblivious. Drake was
in the li