Stuart sat in his office holding a letter from Nan which was hard to answer.

For nine years he had refused to see or speak to her. He met Bivens as a matter of course, but always down town during business hours or at one of his clubs. For the first year Nan had resented his attitude in angry pride and remained silent. And then she began to do a curious thing which had grown to be a part of his inmost life. For the past eight years she had written a brief daily diary recording her doings, thoughts and memories which she mailed to him every Sunday night. She asked no reply and he gave none. No names appeared in its story and no name was signed to the dainty sheets of paper which always bore the perfume of wild strawberries.

But the man who read them in silence knew and understood.

The letter he held to-day was not an unsigned sheet of her diary—it was a direct, personal appeal—tender and beautiful in its sincerity. She begged him to forget the past, because she needed his friendship and advice, and asked that he come to see her at once.

This letter was his first temptation to break the resolution by which he had lived for years. He rose and paced the room with fury, as he began to realize how desperate was his desire to go.

"Have I fought all these years for nothing?" he cried.

The thing that drew him with all but resistless power was the deeper meaning between the lines. He knew that each day the incompleteness of her life had been borne in upon her with crushing force. He knew that the mad impulses which had expressed themselves in luxury, dress, extravagance, balls and bizarre entertainments were but the strangled cries of a sorrowing heart. And he knew that the fatuity of it all had begun at last to terrify her. The more desperately he fought the impulse to go the keener became his desire to see her again. And yet he must not. He felt, by an instinct deeper than reason, that the day he returned from his exile and touched her hand would mark the beginning of a tragedy for both.

And yet the desire to go clamoured with increasing madness. The changes that had come into his life counted for nothing—to-day only a great passion remained—torturing, challenging, tempting. Could he never live it down? He looked about his office, reminded himself of his dignity and responsibility, and sought refuge in his sense of duty to the people.

"I\'ve done some things worth while!" he cried, with brooding pride.

And the record confirmed his boast.

In the past nine years he had thrown his life away only to find it in greater power. He recalled it now with a renewed sense of gratitude.

The first year which he had given of unselfish devotion to the service of the people had been a failure. He saw at the end of it that in reaching an individual here and there he was merely trying to bale out the ocean with a soup ladle. He saw that if he would serve the people he must work through them. He must appeal to the masses, teach, lead, uplift and inspire them to action. And he entered politics. Only organic social action could get anywhere or accomplish anything worth while. He joined the organization of the local Democracy in his district and went to work.

It happened that he joined just before an exciting municipal election. He threw himself into the campaign with the zeal of a crusader. The people who crowded to hear him were not merely thrilled by the eloquence of his impassioned speeches—they felt instinctively that the heart of a real man was beating back of every word.

His advancement was remarkable. At the end of four years he was nominated for District Attorney, and was swept into office by a large majority.

Under his vigorous administration of this important and powerful office the enforcement of justice ceased to be a joke and became a living faith.

His work had stirred the State to a nobler and cleaner civic life. During the past year he had become one of the foremost figures in American Democracy—the best loved and the most hated and feared man in public life in New York.

He remained alike indifferent to the cheers of his friends or the threats of his enemies. He was the most powerful man who had ever held such an office because he had no ambition beyond the highest service he could render the people. He asked no favours—he sought no preferment.

To the men who secured his nomination and election he was an insolvable mystery. He said he wanted nothing. They had taken that as a wise saying of a very shrewd man. When he accepted the nomination, they smiled knowingly. But when they demanded that he use his high office to punish enemies and reward friends—and he politely refused—they served notice on him of political death unless he yielded within a given number of hours.

His answer was a laugh as he opened the door and pointed the way by which the astonished delegation might find a safe and swift way of exit. They passed out in speechless astonishment, and sent their big chief to browbeat and bully the young upstart into submission. The incredible swiftness with which he returned left the question open as to how he got out of the District Attorney\'s office. He claimed to have bowed himself politely out the door—but, from the condition of his clothes and the rumpled state of his hair, his comrades cherished the secret but sure conviction that he was kicked down the stairs. Be that as it may, from that day Stuart was left to his own devices by the professional politicians, who were loud in their accusations of treachery and ingratitude. His political education was given up as hopeless.

Yet in spite of their gloomy predictions of his speedy ruin, he had steadily grown in power and influence.

The work on which he had just entered was an investigation before an unusually intelligent Grand Jury of the criminal acts of a group of the most daring and powerful financiers of the world. These men controlled through their position as trustees of the treasuries of great corporations more millions than the combined treasuries of the governments of the Republic—State and National. The act was not only daring, it was extremely dangerous. Under certain conditions it might produce a panic—so daring and dangerous was the move that its first announcement was received as a joke by the press. The idea of a young upstart questioning the honesty and position of the men who controlled the treasuries of the great insurance and trust companies was ridiculous. When he realized the magnitude of the task he had undertaken, he at once put his house in order for the supreme effort. It was necessary that he give up every outside interest that might distract his attention from the greater task.

The one matter of grave importance to which he was giving his time outside his office was his position as advisory counsel to Dr. Woodman in his suit for damages against the Chemical Trust, which had been dragging its course through the courts for years. To his amazement he had just received an offer from Bivens\'s attorneys to compromise this suit for a hundred thousand dollars. He would of course advise the doctor to accept it immediately. He had never believed he could win a penny.

What could be Bivens\'s motive in making such an offer? It was impossible that the shrewd little president of the American Chemical Company had anything to fear personally from this attack. His fortune was vast and beyond question. His wealth had grown in the past nine years like magic. Everything his smooth little hand touched had turned to gold. Wherever an industry could pay a dividend, his ferret eyes found it. The process was always the same. He brought together its rival houses, capitalized the new combine for ten times its actual value and bound the burden of this enormous fictitious value as an interest-bearing debt on the backs of the consumers of the goods. The people and their children and their children\'s children would have to pay it.

His fortune now could not be less than forty millions and the issue of such a suit as the one Woodman had brought and on which he had spent so much of his time and money was to Bivens a mere bagatelle.

The more Stuart pondered over this extraordinary offer, the more completely he was puzzled. He sought for outside influences that might move him to such an act. It might be Nan—it must be! Her letter surely made the explanation reasonable. She knew this suit was an obstacle in the way of their meeting. If she had made up her mind to remove that obstacle, she would do it. Her will had grown in imperious power with each indulgence.

During the past winter she had become the sensation of the metropolis. Her wealth, her beauty, her palaces, and her entertainments had made her the subject of endless comment. She had set a pace for extravagance which made the old leaders stand aghast. And the one thing which made her letter well nigh resistless was that he alone of all the world knew the inner life of this beautiful woman whose name was on a thousand lips. Her worldly wise mother might have guessed it but she had been dead for the past five years, and the secret was his alone.

He read her letter over again and looked thoughtfully at the pile of legal documents in the case of Woodman against the American Chemical Company lying on his desk.

"It\'s her work beyond a doubt!" he said at last, "and the doctor will never believe it."

He was waiting the arrival of his old friend for a conference over Bivens\'s offer of compromise and he dreaded the ordeal. If he should refuse this final chance of settlement he would make a mistake that could not be undone. The result was even worse than he could possibly foresee.

"So the little weasel has offered to compromise my suit for half the sum we named, eh?" the doctor asked in triumph.

"I assure you that if the case comes to its final test you are certain to lose."

"So you have said again and again, my boy"—was the good-natured reply, "but his sudden terror and this offer shows that we have won already and he knows it. Greater thieves, who have ruined their competitors in the same way, are urging him to settle this suit and prevent others from being brought."

"I don\'t think so."

"It\'s as plain as daylight."