e found her uncle alone. He was sitting in front of his open desk, a pile of papers before him, a

he said, "I shall w

upon the sideboard. Yet Virginia somehow felt that it was not only to take their after-dinner coffee, and enjoy a chat over their cigars, that these men had met together around

rgi

g at her. His eyes had lost their far-away gleam,

ncle!"

a few moments," he said. "L

titude of attention. The words seemed t

am going to tell you. But first of all let me know this. Are you satisfied with what I have done for you, an

sk me that," she answere

am very, very g

find it"-he hesitated for a moment-"m

fe there was a sort of struggle which led nowhere. Here I don't see how any one could be happier than

that the power of money has no limits. I can tell you that it has very fixed and definite limits, and it was when

errupt him, but her eyes w

whom I can trust. I have proved it. I pay my two secretaries more highly than any other employer in the city. They do their duty, but I know very well that they only wait for some one else to outbid me, and they would take themselves and the

at she ignored his i

hing whatever about business, or anything to do with it, but I can at least promise tha

, and we pool all profits. We never speculate individually, at least that is a condition of our agreement. You may not understand this, but such a combination as ours, honestly adhered to, can do what it likes with the money-markets anywhere. We can bend them to our will. We buy or sell, and our profits are sure. We keep our agreement secr

him out?" she as

ok his

ice almost to a whisper, "a new suspicion has come to me. I have an idea that there

s!" she cried,

eemed to change his face from the similitude of a

rate largely upon the markets and control the finances of the country, are hated by the middle classes. We are hated by the merchants, the fairly well-off people, the labouring classes, and, more than any others, perhaps, by

so," she

s in my possession. They all signed it, and it was left for me to be the last. No one noticed that my name was written across a piece of paper laid over the document itself. Now this I keep as a hostage over them. Sooner or later, when their plans mature, it will occur to them what they ha

nothing unusual in the appearance of the hardwood floor. She watched his finger, however, count the cracks from a knot in the wood. Then he pressed a

he said calmly, "and these,

device, and he took from a drawer in hi

these keys. You are going to wear this chain around y

tead of any place for a photograph, were little embedded pads of velvet, shaped for the ke

"why you trust me with this. Su

iled

eans ruin and ridicule for them. New York is a civilized city, it is true, but money can buy the assassin's pistol to-day as easily as it bought the bravo's knife a few hundred years ago. Have you ever thought of the number o

hand tremulously

"but tell me this. I am never to

ny conditions,

f any one should bring a

"Do not give them up. Into m

took off the receiver and held it to his ear. The quiet, mea

now it's safe in your keeping, but I don't fancy my name standing written on a document that means quite w

miled faintly

we strike, and strike quickly, that bill will become law, and we shall al

inued. "We'll meet right here to-morrow n

down the receive

foolish paper. If they are all determined to get it back, and I resist, they will know that the game is

ook he

e looking very wel

ked down to see that the surfa

d, "I am going to b