Bob's work as a salesman continued to be so effective that Kurtz finally offered him a salaried position. But instead of accepting, Bob made a counter-proposition that caused the little man to gasp. Briefly, it was to extend the scope of the present business by laying in a stock of extravagant, high-priced shirt and necktie materials, with Bob as partner in the new venture. Kurtz protested that he was not a haberdasher, but he was constrained to admit that Bob had the right idea of smart business, and after some discussion accepted his employee's nonchalant offer to go halves on the new venture and share in its profits. The fact that Bob had no money with which to carry through his part of the deal troubled that youth not in the least--Kurtz's credit was ample. Bob's theory of securing the Fifth Avenue trade was to double existing prices, and if this did not bring the business, to double them a second time; and this theory was correct, as he demonstrated when the new department was organized.

But despite the excellent income he now began to make there was never anything left in the Wharton bank-account, for Bob moved his wife to a more pretentious apartment on Riverside Drive and managed to increase their expenses so as to balance his earnings very nicely. It was quite a feat to adjust a fixed outlay to a varying income so that nothing whatever should remain, and he considered it a strong proof of his capacities that he succeeded.

By Christmas the haberdashery venture had shown such a profit that he began to pile up a small bank-account in spite of himself; so he bought an automobile, which served to eat up any monthly profits and guarantee a deficit under the most favorable circumstances. Being thus relieved of financial uncertainty, he laid plans to wrest from Kurtz a full partnership in the tailoring business itself.

The Whartons' new home was charming, and Bob provided his wife with every luxury. Lorelei did not regret that she was prevented from going out as much as formerly--her experience at Fennellcourt had cured her of any desire to get into her husband's social set-- and unconsciously she and Bob began to develop a real home life.

As time went on and evidences of prosperity showed themselves Lorelei's family forgot some of their dislike of Bob and became more companionable. Strangely enough, too, their cost of living increased in proportion to their friendliness; but Bob never questioned any amount they asked him for, and he swelled their allowance with characteristic prodigality.

Lorelei was proud of him, as she had reason to be, but she had occasion for sorrow as well. His generosity was really big, his pagan joyousness banished shadows, but he was intensely human in his failings, and in spite of his determination to stop drinking, in spite of all his earnest promises, the old appetite periodically betrayed him. For a month, for two months at a time, he would manfully fight his desires, then without excuse, without cause, just when he was boasting loudest of his victory, he would fall. And yet drinking did not brutalize him as it does most men; he never became disgusting; liquor intoxicated him, but less in body than in spirit. His repentance followed promptly, his chagrin was intense, and his fear of Lorelei almost ludicrous. But the girl had acquired a wider charity, a gentler patience; she grieved, she tried to help him, and his frailty endeared him to her. Love had been slow to awaken; in fact, she had not been definitely aware of its birth; but suddenly she had found it flowering in her soul, and now it flourished the more as that other interest intensified and began to dominate her.

Bob responded to all her efforts save one: she could not make him serious. On the whole, however, they were more happy than they had ever been.

One day, during the slack holiday season, Hannibal Wharton appeared at the Kurtz establishment. He appraised the elaborate surroundings with a hostile eye and stared at his son impassively.

"So! You're a seamstress now," he began, and Bob grinned. "Merkle told me you repaid his loan and had an automobile."

"That's true."

"Second-hand car?"

"No."

"How much do you owe?"

"Nothing, except for stock."

"Stock! What do you mean?"

"Kurtz and I are partners in one end of this business."

"I'll be damned!" breathed Mr. Wharton. Then he inquired, curiously, "Do you like this work?"

"It's not what I prefer, still there is a margin of profit."

"Huh! I should think so, at ninety dollars a suit. Well, this town is full of fools."

Bob agreed. "But we dress 'em better than they do in Pittsburg."

After a moment's consideration Hannibal said slowly: "Mother's at the Waldorf; she wants to see you. You've just about broken her heart, Bob."

"We're not going out much, but perhaps we could call on her--"

"'We'! I said she wants to see YOU."

"And not my wife?"

"Certainly not. Neither do I. You don't seem to understand--"

Bob answered smoothly: "Certainly I understand; you think ninety dollars is too much for a suit. Perhaps I can show you something in scarfs of an exclusive design?"

"Don't be funny!" growled his father.

"Really, dad, you'd better go. That suit of yours is a sight. Somebody may think we made it for you."

Mr. Wharton remained silent for a moment. "The situation is impossible, and anybody but you would see it. We can't accept that woman, and we won't. She's notorious."

"No more so than I--or you, for that matter."

"She's a grafter. She'd quit you if I paid her enough."

"How do you know?"

"Her mother has been to see me half a dozen times. I've offered to pay her anything within reason, but they're holding out for something big. You come back, Bob. Let her go back to her own people."

"And what's to become of the other one?" Bob was smiling faintly.

"The other one? What do you mean?"

"I mean there will be three in the family soon, dad; you're going to be a grandfather."

The effect of this announcement was unexpected. Hannibal Wharton was momentarily stricken dumb, for once he was utterly at a loss. Then, instead of raising his voice, he spoke with a sharp, stuttering incisiveness:

"So that's her game, eh? I suppose she thinks she'll breed her way into the family. Well, she won't. It won't work. I was willing to compromise before--so long as there was no tangible bond between that family and mine--but they've got their blood mixed with mine; they've got a finger-hold in spite of hell, and I suppose they'll hold on. But I won't acknowledge a grandchild with scum like that in its veins. Good God! Now listen--you." Wharton's jaw was outthrust, his gaze hard and unwavering. "No child tainted with that blood will share in one penny of my money, now or at any other time. Understand?"

"Perfectly." Bob's color had receded, but in no other way did he show his struggle for self-mastery. "My wife isn't having a baby to spite you, and if it ever needs a grandfather we'll adopt one."

"They've pulled you down into the mud; now they've tied you there. Heredity's stronger than you or I; watch your child grow up, and watch its mother's blood tell. Then remember that I tried to free you before it was too late. Well, I'm through. This settles me. Good-by, and God help you with that rotten gang." Hannibal Wharton turned and strode out of the room shaking his head and mumbling.

Jimmy Knight had fallen upon evil times. A combination of circumstances had seriously affected his mode of making a living, and that of his friends. To outward appearances the frequenters of Tony the Barber's place were as thrifty as usual, but in the pinochle-room at the rear there was gloom. Reason for these hard times lay in an upheaval of public sentiment that had galvanized the Police Department into one of its periodic spasms of activity, and the cause ran back to a sordid quarrel between two factions of the Tenderloin. At about the time when Jimmy came to New York the contention had become too bitter for the underworld to hold, and echoes of it had begun to leak out; later it culminated in the murder of the leader of one clique. Murders, it is true, are not uncommon in New York, but this one was staged in the glare of Broadway, and with a bold defiance of the law that aroused popular indignation. There followed a chain of fortuitous happenings that issued in the capture of the murderers, in a wide-spread exposure of social conditions, and in a great outburst of public indignation against a police system that allowed such abuses to exist.

Of course there came a loud protest from the guardians of the law, a frantic waving of spotless banners, and a prating of virtue; but the popular will has a way of obtaining its desires regardless of red tape, trickery, or politics, and in this case it demanded a reorganization of the department and got it.

Discipline suddenly strengthened, and as a result gambling almost ceased, wire-tapping languished, organized blackmail was conducted under cover: only crime in its crudest forms continued as usual; and it followed therefore that Jimmy Knight was not prosperous. Had it not been for his share in Bob's generosity he would have been forced to the distressing necessity of asking for employment --a thing to curdle his blood! It was characteristic of young Knight that he did not scruple to accept charity from the man he hated, although he cherished the memory of that public beating at Bob's hands and the humiliation of it gnawed him like a cancer.

More than once lately Jim had been tempted to turn his knowledge of the Hammon "suicide" into cash, but he could think of no safe and certain means of doing so until one day Max Melcher dropped a bit of intelligence that promised to open a way.

"Who do you suppose I just heard from?" Max inquired, one raw afternoon in March, when he had found Jim in their usual haunt. "Lilas Lynn."

Jim made no attempt to conceal his surprise and interest. "Where is she?"

"She wrote from Liverpool, asking for money. Can you beat that?"

"Money? Why, she had a satchel full. What's become of it?"

Melcher shrugged. "She's taken the jumps--English Derby, Paris race-meet, Monte Carlo--"

"Huh! She fished all the sucker-holes along the route, eh? Of course you cabled her a few C's?" Jim snickered.

"Do I look as if I had? She's sick, got a cough, and says it's the 'con.' She wants to come home."

Jim started. "Say, that's no hospital bark of hers; it's nothing but the coke." After a moment he asked casually, "Where's she stopping?"

"Liverpool."

"What's her address? I'll drop her a line to cheer her up." "She wrote from the Hotel--" Melcher checked himself and shot a questioning look at his friend. "Why this sudden charity?"

Jim's gaze was bland, his tone one of wounded innocence. "Can't a guy offer to cheer--"

"You're not in the business of cheering sick dames," Melcher said, sharply. Then, after a pause, "You never came through with me, Jim. There was something phony about Lilas's get-away. She left too suddenly after the Hammon suicide, and she's been under cover now for eight months. I never got it quite right. What're you holding out?"

Jim sparred adroitly, but without effect.

"Oh! You've got an ace buried somewhere," Melcher said. "You're a shifty guy. Of course this is a friendly game we're playing, but, just the same, I never bettered a poker hand by leaving the room. I don't even turn my head to spit when I'm sitting in with a fellow like you. Lilas has got something on her mind, and I believe I'll cable her the price of a ticket."

That was enough for Jim. He began to weaken, and at last made a clean breast of all the circumstances surrounding Jarvis Hammon's death rather than risk the result of a meeting between Max and Lilas. When he had finished his story Melcher was leaning forward, his pink, smooth-shaven, agreeable face gravely intent.

"So that was the way of it. Wharton and Merkle--and a four- wheeler! By God! That was nervy--on Merkle's part, especially. He took a chance. And Lilas shot the old man, eh?"

"Nobody saw her do it," Jim explained. "Lorelei was in the dining- room at the time it happened, and Hammon swore he did it himself. He stood on that to the last."

"I didn't know they grew men the size of that fellow," Max mused. "After all, it's the suckers that die game. And you were going to put this over single-handed, eh?--you and Lilas, perhaps! My boy, you must learn to shoot before you go hunting. Why, there's a hundred thousand quick money in this."

"If Wharton had done the shooting or Merkle--yes."

"What's the difference who did it? Why, it's a cinch. Get this! Lilas comes home broke. She's sick, and sees the undertaker flirting with her, so she decides to spill the whole story and take the consequences--understand? It's conscience." Mr. Melcher laughed lightly at his little joke. "A sick woman's conscience is an expensive thing; it takes money to square it. Merkle won't stand, and Wharton can't, on account of his wife--your sister. He'll tap his old man, and Hannibal will loosen for the family honor. After they're dry we've got the Hammon widow to work on."

"It'll take money to do this--protection, too."

"Well, I've got both."

"I suppose we'll split three ways."

Max pursed his lips thoughtfully. "N-no; you and Lilas are broke. I've got the money and the police. I'll take half."

Jim's acquiescence to these terms came hard, and he cursed himself as a fool for putting himself at the mercy of this man. He was still raging inwardly when Melcher left to send a cablegram; but there was ample leisure for reflection during the week that followed, and, being possessed of some ingenuity, Jim had formulated a scheme before Lilas Lynn's arrival.

In due time she came, and Melcher saw her established at a modest hotel before making known in detail his intentions.

Lilas was little more than a wreck of what she had been. It seemed im............