Stuart\'s appeal to the New York papers in behalf of Harriet was successful. For a week he bought every morning and evening edition and read them eagerly. Not a line appeared to darken the life of his little pal.

Bivens\'s illness shook the financial world. The men who had professed his friendship most loudly to his face now sharpened their knives for his wounded body. Every stock with which his name was linked was the target of the most savage attacks. The tumbling of values in his securities carried down the whole market from five to six points in a single day.

The great palace that had a few nights before blazed with lights and echoed with music, laughter, song and dance and clinking glasses, stood dark and silent behind its bristling iron fence.

Of all the fawning crowd that had thronged its portals to drink the wine and toast the greatness of its master, not one was his friend to-day. Each sycophant of yesterday was now a wolf prowling in the shadows, awaiting the chance to tear his wounded body.

Within the darkened palace the doctors were supreme. In his great library they held consultation after consultation and secretly smiled when they thought of the figures they would write on his bills. They disagreed in details, but all agreed on the main conclusion—that the only hope was that he should quit work and play for several years.

When they made this solemn announcement to Bivens, he smiled for the first time. It was too good a joke. How could he play? He knew but one game, the big game of the man-hunt! He told his doctors politely but firmly that they might go to hell, he would go to Europe and see if there were doctors over there who knew anything.

The shaking miserable little figure staggered up the gang plank of a steamer. He made a brave show of strength to the reporters who swarmed about him for an interview and collapsed in the arms of his wife on reaching his staterooms.

He had forgotten his resentment on account of Woodman in the presence of the Great Terror, whose shadow had suddenly darkened the world, and clung with pathetic eagerness to Stuart\'s friendship.

The young lawyer had said good-bye to Nan with a sense of profound relief. From the bottom of his soul he thanked God she was going. It had been impossible to keep away from her, and each day he had felt the sheer physical magnetism of her presence more and more resistless.

He returned with renewed energy and enthusiasm to the practice of law. The wide fame he had achieved as district attorney brought him the best clients and from them he was able to choose only the cases which involved principles worth fighting for.

His spare time he gave in a loving effort to restore the doctor to his old cheerful frame of mind. He had returned Bivens\'s money in spite of his protest and made his old friend a loan sufficient for his needs, taking his personal note for security.

He had no difficulty in learning the progress of Bivens in his search of Europe for health.

A troop of reporters followed him daily. His doings were chronicled with more minute details than the movements of kings. If he sneezed, it was cabled to America. In every capital of the Old World he was received with what amounted to royal honours. His opinions were eagerly sought by reigning sovereigns. The daily cabled reports to New York always gave his condition as better.

But Stuart knew the truth. He received two or three letters a week from Nan. She had told him in full detail the little man\'s suffering, and at last of his homesickness, fast developing into a mania.

He was not surprised at the end of three months to hear her familiar voice over his telephone.

"Yes, we\'ve returned, Jim—sailed incognito to escape the reporters. He is very feeble. We haven\'t been in the house three hours, but he has asked for you a dozen times. Can you come up at once?"

Stuart hesitated and she went on rapidly.

"Please come without delay. I promised him not to leave the \'phone until I got you. You will come?"

"Yes, I\'ll come," he answered slowly.

He hung up the receiver with a groan.

"It\'s Fate!" he said bitterly. "Every time I feel that I\'m fighting my way to a place of safety, the devil bobs up serenely with an excuse so perfect it can\'t be denied. It won\'t do; I\'ll tear my tongue out sooner than speak."

He repeated these resolutions over and over before reaching the Bivens mansion only to find that he had lost all sense of danger in the warmth and tenderness of Nan\'s greeting. He not only forgot his fears but reproached himself for his low estimate of her character in supposing that she would allow herself or permit him to cross the line of da............