No, not to Waldron. Yet wander they did, despite her; and with
persistence they followed channels till then quite unknown to her.

What might these channels be? And whither, I ask again, did the girl's
memories and fancies, her wondering thoughts, her vague, half-formulated
longings, lead?

You, perhaps, can answer, as well as I, if you but remember
that--Billionaire's daughter though she was, and all unversed in the
hard realities of life--she was, at heart and soul, very much a woman
after all.




CHAPTER XVII.

THOUGHTS.


During the long days, the June days, of her convalescence, Catherine
found herself involuntarily reverting, more often than she could
understand, to thoughts of the inscrutable and unknown man who had in
all probability saved her life.

"Had it not been for him," she reflected, as she sat there gazing out
over the river, "I might not be here, this minute. Caught as I was, on
the very brink of the precipice, I should almost certainly have slipped
and fallen over, in my dazed condition, when I tried to get up. If I'd
been alone, if he hadn't found me just when he did--!"

She shuddered at thought of what must almost inevitably have happened,
and covered her face with both hands. Her cheeks burned; she knew
emotion such as not once had Waldron's kiss ever been able to arouse in
her. The memory of how she, half-unconscious, had lain in that
stranger's arms, so powerful and tense; had been carried by him, as
though she had been a child; had felt his breath upon her face and the
quick, vigorous beating of his heart--all this, and more, dwelt in her
soul, nor could she banish it.

Gratitude? Yes, and more. For the first time in her two-and-twenty
years, Catherine had sensed the power, the virility of a real man--not
of the make-believe, manicured and tailored parasites of her own
class--and something elemental in her, some urge of primitive womanhood,
grappled her to that memory and, all against her will, caused her to
live and re-live those moments, time and time again, as the most strange
and vital of her life.

Yet, it was not this physical call alone, in her, that had awakened her
being. The man's eyes, and mouth and hair, true, all remained with her
as a subtly compelling lure; his strength and straight directness seemed
to conquer her and draw her to him; but beyond all this, something in
his speech, in his ideas and the strange reticence that had so puzzled
her, kept him even more constantly in her wondering thoughts.

"A workingman," she murmured to herself, in uncomprehending revery, "he
said he was a workingman--and he knew that I was very, very rich. He
knew my father would have rewarded him magnificently, given him money,
work, anything he might have asked. And yet, and yet--he would not even
tell his name. And he refused to know mine! He didn't want to know! His
pride--why, in all my life, among all the proud, rich people that I've
known, I've never found such pride as that!"

She reflected what would have happened had any man of the usual type
rescued her, even a man of wealth and position. Of course, thought she,
that man would have made himself known and would have called on her,
ostensibly to inquire after her condition, yet really to ingratiate
himself. At this reflection she shuddered again.

"Ugh!" she whispered. "He'd have tried to take liberties, any other man
would. He'd have presumed on the accident--he'd have been--oh,
everything that _that_ man was not, and could never be!"

Now her thoughts wandered to the brief talk they two had had there in
the old sugar-house. Every word of it seemed graven on her memory.
Disconnected bits of what he had told her, seemed to float before her
mental vision--: "I? Oh, I'm just an out-of-work--don't ask me who I am;
and I won't ask who _you_ are. We're of different worlds, I guess--don't
question me; I'd rather you wouldn't. Am I happy? Yes, in a way, or
shall be, when I've done what I mean to do!"

Such were some of his phrases that kept coming back to her, as she sat
there in that luxurious and beautiful room, her book lying unread in her
lap, the scent of flowers everywhere, and, merely for her taking, all
the world's treasures hers to command. Strange man, indeed, and stranger
speech, to her! Never had she been thus spoken to. His every word and
thought and point of view, commonplace enough, perhaps, seemed
peculiarly stimulating to her, and wakened eager curiosity, and would
not let her live in peace, as heretofore.

"He said he was a Socialist, too," she murmured, "whatever that may be.
But he--he didn't _look_ it! On the contrary, he looked remarkably clean
and intelligent. And the words he used were the words of an educated
man. Far better vocabulary than Waldron's, for example; and as for poor
little Van Slyke, and that set, why this man's mind seems to have
towered above them as the Palisades tower above the river!

"Happy? Rich? He said he was both--and all he had was eighteen dollars
and his two big hands! Just fancy that, will you? He might as well have
said eighteen cents; it would have been about as much! And I--what did
I tell him? I told him I, with all my money and everything, was vacant,
empty, futile! Just those words. And--God help me, I--I am!"

Suddenly, she felt her eyes were wet. What was the reason? Herself she
knew not. All she knew was that with her beautiful and queenly head
bowed on the arm of her Japanese silk morning gown, as its loose sleeves
lay along the edge of the Chippendale table, she was crying like a
child.

Crying bitterly; and yet in a kind of new, strange joy. Crying with
tears so bitter-sweet that she, herself, could not half understand them;
could not fathom the deeper meaning that lay hidden there.

"If!" she whispered to her heart. "If only I were of his class, or he of
mine!"

And Gabriel, what of him?

As he swung north and westward, day by day, on the long hike toward
Niagara, the memory of the girl went with him, and hour by hour bore him
company.

He was not forgetting. Could he forget? Strive as he might, to thrust
her out of his heart and soul, she still indwelt there.

Not all his philosophy, nor all his realization that this woman he had
saved, this woman who had lain in his two arms and mingled her breath
with his, belonged to another and an alien class, could banish her.

And as he strode along, swinging his knotted stick at the daisies and
pondering on all that might have been and now could never be, a sudden,
passionate longing burst over him, as a long sea-roller, hurled against
a cliff, flings upward in vast tourbillions of spume.

Raising his face to the summer sky, his bare head high with emotion and
his eyes wide with the thought of strange possibilities that shook and
intoxicated him, he cried:

"Oh--would God she were an orphan and an outcast! Would God she had no
penny in this world to call her own!"




CHAPTER XVIII.

FLINT AND WALDRON PLAN.


"Tiger" Waldron's interview with old man Flint, regarding Catherine's
breaking of the engagement, was particularly electric. Promptly at the
appointed hour, Waldron appeared, shook hands with the older man, sat
down and lighted a cigar, then proceeded to business.

"Flint," said he, without any ado, "I've come here to tell you some very
unpleasant news and to ask your help. Can you stand the one, and give me
the other?"

The Billionaire looked at him through his pince-nez, poised on that
vulture-beak, with some astonishment. Then he smiled nervously, showing
his gleaming tooth of gold, and answered:

"Yes, I guess so. What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? Everything! Catherine has broken our engagement!"

For a moment old Flint sat there motionless and staring. Then, moving
his head forward with a peculiar, pecking twitch that still further
enhanced his likeness to a buzzard, he stammered:

"You--you mean--?"

"I mean just what I say. Your daughter has severed the betrothal.
Haven't you noticed my ring was gone from her finger?"

"Gone? Bless my soul, no--that is, yes--maybe. I don't know. But--but
at any rate, I thought nothing of it. So then, you say--she's broken it
off? But, why? And when? And--and tell me, Wally, what's it all about?"

"Listen, and I _will_ tell you," Tiger answered. "And I'll give it to
you straight. I'm partly at fault. Mostly so, it may be. Let me assume
all the blame, at any rate. I'm not sparing myself and have no intention
of doing so. My conduct, I admit, was beastly. No excuses offered. All I
want to do, now, is to make the _amende honorable_, be forgiven, and
have the former status resumed."

Thus spoke Waldron. But all the time his soul lay hot within him, at
having so to humble himself before Flint; at being thus obliged to eat
crow, and fawn and feign and creep.

"If I didn't need your billion, old man," his secret thought was, as he
eyed Flint with pretended humility, "you might go to Hell, for all of
me--you and your daughter with you, damn you both!"

The Billionaire sat blinking, for a moment. Then, picking up a pencil
and idly scrawling pothooks on the big clean sheet of blotting-paper
that covered his reference-book table, beside which the men were
sitting, he asked:

"Well, what's the trouble all about? What are the facts? I must have
those, in full, before I can guarantee to do anything toward changing my
daughter's opinion. Much as I deplore her action, Wally, I don't know
whether she's right or wrong, till you tell me. Now, let's have it."

"I will," the other answered; and he was as good as his word. Realizing
the prime futility of any subterfuge, or any misstatement of
fact--which Catherine would surely discover and tell her father, and
which would react against him--Waldron began at the beginning and
narrated the entire affair, with every detail precisely accurate. Nay,
he even exaggerated the offensiveness of his conduct, at the Longmeadow
Club, and in various ways gave the Billionaire to understand that he was
a more serious offender than in truth he really was. For, after all, the
only real offense was the lack of any compatibility between the girl and
himself--the total absence of love.

Flint listened carefully and with a judicial expression. If he blamed
Waldron, he made no statement of that fact. A man himself, and one who
viewed man's weaknesses and woman's foibles with a cynic eye, he could
judge motives and weigh actions with considerable skill.

"I see, I see," he commented, when Waldron had quite done, and had
poured forth a highly false declaration of his great love for the girl
and his determination that this rupture should not be permanent. "I
understand the case, I think. It all seems an unfortunate accident--just
one of those unavoidable incidents which strike into and upset human
calculations, against all expectation.

"You're not terribly guilty, Waldron. You acted inconsiderably.
Irritatingly, perhaps, and not wholly like a gentleman--for which, blame
the rotten Scotch they _will_ persist in selling, out there at
Longmeadow. But even that's not fatal. Many men have done worse and been
forgiven. I'll have a talk with Catherine, inside a day or two, when the
psychological moment offers. And you may be sure, if a father's advice
and good offices are of any avail, this little quarrel will be all
patched up between you two. Surely will be! I can almost positively
promise you that!"

"Promise it?" asked Waldron, leaning eagerly forward, a strange light in
those close-set, greenish eyes.

Flint nodded. "Yes," he answered. "I've never yet failed to bring Kate
to reason and good common-sense, when I've set out to. This will be no
exception. My word and my counsel possess the greatest weight with her.
She'll listen and be advised, I'm sure. So have no uneasiness," he
concluded, holding out his hand to his partner. "Leave everything to me.
You'll see, it will all come right, in the end."

"Tiger" shook his hand, cordially.

"I haven't words to thank you!" he exclaimed, with as much emotion as he
could simulate from a perfectly cold heart and calculating soul.

"Don't try to," the Billionaire replied, with seeming benevolence. "All
the thanks I want, Wally, is to patch up this little difficulty and
reunite two--that is--two loving, sympathetic hearts!"

"You old hypocrite!" Waldron thought, eyeing him. "All _you_ want of me,
if anything, is to keep me as your partner, because you know you're
growing old and losing your grip, and I'm still in the game with all
four claws! Paternal philanthropist _you_ are--I don't think!"

Wally was dead right.

"I can't lose this man," the Billionaire was thinking. "Whether or no,
Kate has got to marry him. This Air Trust business demands a strong, a
quick, a perfectly unscrupulous hand. And no outsider will do. My
partner has got to be my son-in-law. Love be damned! Romantic slush can
go to Hell! Kate will marry him--she's _got_ to--or I'll know the reason
why!

"Though, after all," he soothed his conscience, as Waldron stood up,
walked to the window and stood gazing out as he smoked, "after all,
Wally will make her as happy, I fancy, as any man. He's a fine figure in
the world, commanding, heavily propertied, energetic and successful,
also of the finest family connections. Yes, a husband any woman might
admire and be proud of. Certainly, the only son-in-law for _me_. Even if
she can't idolize and worship him, as some fool women think they must, a
man, she can respect and be respected with him. And with him she can
take the highest position in the land, without a qualm as to his
competence and manner. Beside all that, what's love? Love? Bah!"

With which philosophy, he too arose, went back into his own office, and
returned to the dictating of some very private letters to Slade, the
Cosmos Detective Agency manager, _in re_ the ferreting-out and jailing
or deporting of all Socialists and labor leaders at Niagara. This
preparatory work on the ground of the huge new Air Trust plant, he
deemed most essential. The Cosmos people, scenting a big contract, had
fostered his belief, and now, already, the work was well under way.
Subterranean methods were still sufficing; but, should these fail,
others lay in the background.

Flint smiled a grim, vulturine smile as he read over the finished
letters of instruction, a few minutes later.

"And to think," he mused, as he finished them, "that these fanatics
believe--really believe--they can make headway anywhere in this country,
now! Ten years ago, yes, they might have. But that's not today. Then,
publie opinion--stupid and futile as it was--could still be aroused.
Then, there was a really effective labor and Socialist press. And the
Limited Franchise Bill hadn't gone through. Neither had the enlarged
Military Bill, the National Censorship nor even the Grays--the National
Mounted Police. While _now_--ah, thank Heaven, it's all so different and
so easy that I call myself a fool, at times, for even giving these
matters a single thought!

"Well," he concluded, handing the letters back to his confidential
secretary, for mailing, "well, now _that's_ done, at any rate. So then,
to the S. & S. committee meeting. And tonight my little
talk with Kate. I'll soon bring her to reason, I'm sure. There's nothing
can't be accomplished by a little patience and persuasion."

The old Billionaire chose his time well, that night, for the vital
interview with his daughter, who had so far rebelled against his
authority as to break with the man most eminently acceptable to him.
After a simple but exquisite dinner in the Venetian room, he asked the
girl to play for him, which (he knew) always pleased her and put her in
a receptive mood.

"Play for you, father?" she answered. "Of course I will, anything and as
much as you like! What shall it be, tonight? Chopin, or Grieg, or--?"

"Anything that pleases you, suits me, my dear," he answered, smiling
with satisfaction at his ruse. Never had he felt more masterful. He had
allowed himself a trifle more morphia than usual that day, by reason of
the approaching interview; and now the subtle drug filled him with
well-being and seemed to enhance his self-control and power. Lighting a
cigar--rare treat for him--he offered Kate his arm; and together,
unattended by any valet or domestic, they walked along the high,
paneled hallway, hung with Gobelin tapestries, and so reached the
magnificent music-room which Kate claimed, in a way, as her own special
place at Idle Hour.

Here everything suggested harmony. The mahogany wainscotted walls were
decked with fine portraits of the world's great masters of melody.
Handsome cabinets contained costly and elaborate collections and folios
of music, a complete library of the entire world's best productions. The
girl's harp--a masterpiece by Pestalozzi of Venice--stood at one side;
on the other, a five hundred dollar Victrola, with a wonderful
repertoire of records. But the grand piano itself dominated all,
especially made for Catherine by Durand Freres, in Paris, and imported
on the Billionaire's own yacht, the "Bandit." A wondrous instrument,
this, finer even than the pipe-organ in an alcove at the far end of the
room. It summed up all that the world's masters knew of
instrument-production; and its cost, from factory to its present place
at Idle Hour, represented twenty years' wages, and more, of any of
Flint's slaves in the West Virginia mines or the Glenn Pool oil-fields
of Oklahoma.

At this magnificent piano the girl now seated herself, on a bench of
polished teak, from Mindanao. And, turning to her father, who had sunk
down in his favorite easy-chair of Russia leather, she asked with a
smile:

"Well, daddy, what shall I play for you, to-night?"

He looked at her a minute, before replying. Never had she seemed to
dear, so beautiful to him. The rose-tinted light that fell softly from a
Bohemian chandelier over her head, flooded her coiled hair, her face,
her hands, with soft warm color. The slight dressing that her wound now
required was covered by a deft arrangement of her hair. She had regained
her usual tint. Nothing now told of the accident, the close call she had
had, from death, so short a time before. And old Flint smiled, as he
answered her:

"What shall you play? Anything you like, my dear. You know best--only,
don't make it too classical. Your old father isn't up to that ultra
music, you know, and never will be!"

She smiled again with understanding, and turned to the keyboard. Then,
without notes, and with a delicate touch of perfectly modulated
interpretation, she began to render "Trauemerei," as though she, too, had
been dreaming of something that might have been.

Flint listened, with perfect content. The music soothed and quieted him.
Even the foreknowledge of the difficult task that lay before him, the
interview that he must have with his daughter, faded from his mind, a
little, and left him wholly calm. Eyes closed, every sense intent on the
delicious harmony, he followed the masterpiece to the end; and sighed
when the last notes had died away, and kept silence.

Then Kate, still needing no music on the rack before her, played the
"Miserere" from "Il Trovatore," a Hungarian "Czardas," Mendelssohn's
"Fruehlingslied" and the overture from "William Tell." She followed these
with the "Intermezzo" and the "Pizzicato" from "Sylvia," and then with
"Narcissus" and "Sans Souci." And at the end of this, she paused again;
for now her father had arisen and come close to her. With a hand on her
shoulder, looking down at her with stern yet kindly eyes, he said:

"'Sans Souci'? That means 'Without Care,' doesn't it, Kate?"

"Yes, Daddy. Why?" she answered.

"Oh, I was just thinking, that's all," said he. "It made me wish _I_ had
no cares, no troubles, no sorrows."

"Sorrows, father? Why should you have sorrows?" she queried, turning to
him and taking both his shriveled hands in her warm, strong ones.

"Sorrows? Why shouldn't I?" said he. "Every man of large affairs has
them. Every father has them, too." And he bent over her and kissed her,
with unusual emotion.

"Every father?" asked she. "What do you mean? Am _I_ a sorrow to you?"

"A joy in many ways," he answered. "In some, a sorrow."

"In what ways?" she asked quickly, her eyes widening.

"In this way, most of all," he told her, as he took her left hand up,
and pointed at the finger where Waldron's ring had been and now no
longer was.

She looked at him a moment, hardly understanding; then bowed her head.

"Father," she whispered. "Forgive me--but I couldn't! I--I couldn't! No,
not for the world!"

Flint's drug-contracted eyes hardened as he stood there gazing down at
her. Once, twice he essayed to speak, but found no words. At last,
however, blinking nervously, he said:

"This, Kate, is what I want to talk with you about, to-night. Will you
hear me?"




CHAPTER XIX.

CATHERINE'S DEFIANCE.


"Hear you, best and dearest father in the world?" she cried, looking
quickly up at him again. "Of course I will! Only, I beg you,
don't--don't ask me to--"

"I will ask you nothing, Kate, my girl, save this--to consider
everything well, and to act like a reasoning, thinking creature, not
like an impetuous and romantic school-girl!"

Releasing her hands, he once more sat down in the easy-chair, crossed
his legs and peered keenly at her, to fathom if he could the inner
workings of that other brain and heart.

"Well, father," she said, "I'll admit, right away, that I've done wrong
to keep this from you, or to try to. We--I--broke the engagement, that
day of the accident, out at Longmeadow. I _meant_ to tell you, tell you
everything and explain it all, but somehow--"

"You needn't explain, my dear," said Flint, judicially. "Wally has
already done so."

"And does he blame me, father?" cried the girl, eagerly, clasping her
hands on her knees.

"No, not at all. On the contrary, he claims the fault is all his own.
And he's most contrite and repentant, Kate. Absolutely so. All he asks
in the world is to make amends and--well, resume the old relation,
whenever you are willing."

Kate shook her head.

"That's noble and big of him, father," said she, "to assume all the
blame. Really, half of it is mine. But he's acted like a true man, in
taking it. However, that can't change my decision. I want him for a
friend, in every way. But for a husband, no, no, never in this world!"

The Billionaire frowned darkly. Already a stronger opposition was
developing than he had expected; and opposition was the one thing in all
the world that he could neither tolerate nor endure.

"Listen, Kate," said he. "You don't grasp the situation at all. Waldron
is an extraordinary man in many ways. In refusing him, you seriously
injure yourself. Of course, he has never done any spectacular, heroic
thing for you, like--for instance--that young man who rescued you, and
whom I shall suitably reward as soon as I find him--"

"What!" she exclaimed, peering eagerly at her father. "What do you mean?
Find him? Reward him?"

"Eh? Why, naturally," the Billionaire replied, scowling at the
interruption. "His game of refusing his identity was, of course, just a
clever dodge on his part. He certainly must expect something out of it.
I have--er--set certain forces at work to discover him; and, as I say,
when I've done so, I will reward him liberally, and--"

"You'd better _not_!" ejaculated Kate, with animation. "He isn't the
sort of man you can take liberties with!"

"Hm? What now?" said Flint, with vexation. "What do _you_ know about
him?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing, father," the girl answered quickly. "Only, I
think you're making a mistake to try and force a reward on a man who
doesn't want it. But no matter," she added, her face tinged by a warmer
glow--which Flint was quick to see. "Forgive my interruption. Now, about
Wally?"

The old man peered intently at his daughter, a full minute, then with a
peculiar sinking at his heart, made shift to say:

"About Wally, yes; you simply don't understand. That's all. Listen now,
Kate, and be reasonable."

"I will, daddy. Only don't ask me to marry a man I don't and can't love,
ever, ever, so long as I live!"

"That isn't anything, my girl. Love isn't all."

"It is, to _me_! Without it, marriage is only--" She shuddered. "No,
daddy; a thousand times better for me to be an old maid, and--and all
that, than give myself to _him_!"

Flint set his teeth hard together.

"Kate," said he, his voice like wire, "now hear what I have to say! I
want you fully to understand the character and desirability of Maxim
Waldron!"

Then in a cold, analytic voice, carefully, point by point, he analyzed
the suitor, told of his wealth and power, his connections and his
prospects, his culture, travel, political influence and world-wide
reputation.

"Furthermore," he added, while Kate listened with an expression as cold
as her father's tone itself, "he is my partner. We are allied, in
business. I hope we may be, too, in family. This man is one that any
woman in the world might be proud to call her husband--proud, and glad!
Love flies away, in a few brief months or years. Wealth and power and
respect remain. And, with these, love too may come. Be strong, Kate! Be
sensible! You are no child, but a grown woman. I shall not try to force
you. All I want to do is show you your own best interest. Think this all
over. Sleep on it. Tomorrow, let us talk of it again. For your own sake,
and mine, do as you should, and let folly be averted. Renew the
engagement. Hush the breath of gossip and scandal. Conform. Play the
game! Do right--be strong!"

She only shook her head; and now he saw the glister of tear-drops in
those beautiful gray eyes.

"Father," cried she, standing up and holding out both hands to him.
"Have mercy on me! I can't--I can't! My heart refuses and I cannot force
it. All this--what is it to me?" She swept her hand at the glowing
luxury around her. "Without love, what would such another home be to me?
Worse than a prison-cell, I swear! A living death, to one like me!
Barter and sale--cold calculation--oh, horrible prostitution, horrible,
unspeakable!

"Poverty, with love--yes, I would choose it. Without love, I never,
never can give myself! Never, as long as I live!"

The Billionaire, too, stood up. He was shaking, now, as in a palsy,
striving to control his rage. His fingers twitched spasmodically, and
his eyes burned like firecoals behind those gleaming lenses.

Then, as he peered at her, he suddenly went even paler than before.
Through his heart a stab of understanding had all at once gone home. The
veils were lifted, and he knew the truth.

Her manner in speaking of that unknown, wandering rescuer; the blush
that had burned from breast to brow, when he had mentioned the fellow;
her aversion for Waldron and her reticence in talking of the
accident--all this, and more, now surged on Flint's comprehension,
flooding his mind with light--with light and with terrible anger.

And, losing all control, he took a step or two, and raised his shaking
hand. His big-knuckled finger, shaken in denunciation, was raised almost
in her face. Choking, stammering, he cried:

"Ah! Now I know! Now, now I understand you!"

Terrified, she retreated toward the door of the music-room.

"Father, father! What makes you look so?" she gasped. "Oh, you have
never looked or spoken to me this way! What--what can it be?"

"What can it be?" he mouthed at her. "You ask me, you hypocrite, when
you well know?"

Suddenly she faced him, stiffening into pride and hard rebellion.

"No more of that, father!" she exclaimed, her eyes blazing. "I am your
daughter, but you can't talk to me thus. You must not!"

"Who--who are _you_ to say 'must not?'" he gibed, now wholly beside
himself. "You--you, who love a vagabond, a tramp, scum and off-scouring
of the gutter?"

A strange, half-choking sound was his only answer. Then, with no word,
she turned away from him, biting her lip lest she answer and betray
herself.

"Go!" he commanded, bloodless and quivering. "Go to your room. No more
of this! We shall see, soon, who's master of this house!"

She was already gone.

Old Flint stood there a moment, listening to her retreating footfalls on
the parquetry of the vast hall. Then, as these died he turned and
groped his way, as though blind, back to his chair, and fell in it, and
covered his eyes with both his shaking hands.

For a long time he sat there, anguished and crucified amid all that
unmeaning luxury and splendor.

At last he rose and with uncertain steps sought his own suite,
above-stairs.

Billionaire and world-master though he was, that night he knew his heart
lay dead within him. He realized that all the fruits of life were Dead
Sea fruits, withered to dust and ashes on his pale and quivering lips.




CHAPTER XX.

THE BILLIONAIRE'S PLOT.


He was aroused from this bitter revery by a rapping at the door.
Opening, he admitted Slawson, his valet. The servile one handed him a
letter with a special-delivery stamp on it.

"Excuse me for intruding, sir," said Slawson, meekly smiling, "but I
knew this was urgent."

"All right. Get out!" growled Flint. When the man was gone, he fortified
himself with a couple of morphine tablets, and ripped the long envelope.
It was from Slade, he knew, of the Cosmos Agency.

With a rapid eye he glanced it over. Then uttering a sudden oath, he
studied it carefully, under the electric bulb beside his dressing-table.

"Gods and devils!" he ejaculated. "What next?"

The letter read:

142A Park Row, New York City, June 28, 1921.

Isaac L. Flint, Esq.,

Idle Hour, Englewood, N. J.