"Not for a moment. But the old question of expediency always bobs up.

I'm getting older. I'm not as old as this white hair would make me, but I feel it. Perhaps I am out-of-date. Your eyes are young, boy; your soul fresh from God's heart. I'm just a little lonely and afraid to-night. See things for me--sit down a moment."

The doctor drew Stuart into a seat and rushed on impatiently.

"Listen, and then tell me if I should follow that little weasel and apologize. I'll do it if you say so--at least I think I would, for I'm afraid of myself." He paused, and a look of pain clouded his fine face as his eye rested on a portrait of Harriet on the table before him.

"There are several reasons why you couldn't have a more sympathetic listener to-night, Doctor--go on."

"Grant all their claims," he began impatiently, "for the Trust--its economy, its efficiency, its power, its success--this is a free country, isn't it?"

"Theoretically."

"Well, I wish to do business in my own way--not so big and successful a way perhaps as theirs, but my own. I express myself thus. When I hint at such a thing to your modern organizing friend, that these enormous profits for the few must be paid out of the poverty of the many--against whom the strong and cunning are thus combining--a simple answer is always ready, 'Business is business,' which translated is the old cry that the first murderer shrieked into the face of his questioner: 'Am I my brother's keeper?'

"That's why I'm afraid of these fellows. The unrestrained lust for money is always the essence of murder, and the man or woman who surrenders to its spell will kill when put to the test. The law which holds burglary constructive murder is founded on an elemental truth.

The man who puts on a mask, arms himself with revolver, knife, and dark lantern and enters my house to rob me of my goods will not hesitate to kill if a human life stands in the way of his success."

"I should not put it quite so strongly of these men----"

"I do. And I know I'm right. I saw murder in those black bead eyes of Bivens's to-night. Do you think he would hesitate to close a factory to increase a dividend if he knew that act would result in the death of its employees from weakness and hunger? Not for a minute. He hesitates only at a violation of the letter of the criminal code. What, then, is the difference between a burglar and a modern organizer of industry?

Absolutely none."

Stuart laughed.

"Understand me, boy, I'm not preaching any patent remedy for social ills. I'm not in a hurry. I can wait as God waits. But this question is with me a personal one. I simply hold the biggest thing on earth is not a pile of gold, stolen or honestly earned. The biggest thing on this earth is a man. Our nation is not rich by reason of its houses and lands, its gold or silver or copper or iron--but because of its men. I believe in improving this breed of men, not trying to destroy them. For that reason I refuse success that is not built on the success and happiness of others. I refuse to share in prosperity that is not the growth of prosperity."

"But if you sell your business to these men and retire, will you necessarily share in their wrong-doing?"

"In a very real and tragic sense, yes. I'm a coward. I give up the fight. I've been both a soldier and a merchant. Why does the world honour a soldier and despise a merchant? Because a soldier's business is to die for his country, and a merchant's habit is to lie for profit.

Isn't old Ruskin right? Why should not trade have its heroes as well as war? Why shouldn't I be just as ready to die as a merchant for my people as I was on the field of battle?"

The doctor paused, and his eyes grew dim while Stuart bent closer and watched and listened as if in a spell. He realized that his old friend was not really asking advice, but that a great soul in a moment of utter loneliness was laid bare and crying for sympathy.

The doctor's voice took a tone of dreamy tenderness.

"I am just passing through this world once. I can't live a single day of it over again. There are some things I simply must do as I pass.

They can't wait, and the thing that has begun to strangle me is this modern craze for money, money, money, at all hazards, by fair or foul means! In every walk of life I find this cancer eating the heart out of men. I must fight it! I must! Good food, decent clothes, a home, pure air, a great love--these are all any human being needs! No human being should have less. I will not strike down my fellow man to get more for myself while one human being on this earth wants as much."

Unconsciously the young man's hand was extended and grasped the doctor's.

"You'll never know," Stuart said with deep emotion, "how much I owe to you in my own life. You have always been an inspiration to me."

The patient gray eyes smiled.

"I'm glad to hear that to-night, my boy. For strange as it may seem to you, I've been whistling to keep up my courage. I'm going to make this fight for principle because I know I'm right, and yet somehow when I look into the face of my baby I'm a coward. I'm going to make this fight and I've a sickening foreboding of failure. But after all, can a man fail who is right?"

"I don't believe it!" was the ringing answer which leaped to Stuart's lips. "I've had to face a crisis like this recently. I was beginning to hesitate and think of a compromise. You've helped me."

"Good luck, my boy," was the cheery answer. "I was a poor soldier to-night myself until the little weasel told me an obvious lie and I took courage."

"Funny if Bivens should do anything obvious."

"Wasn't it? He pretended to have come in a mood of generosity--his offer of settlement inspired by love."

"The devil must have laughed."

"So did I--especially when he told me that he was engaged to be married."

"Engaged--to--be--married?" Stuart made a supreme effort to appear indifferent--"to whom?"

"To Miss Nan Primrose, a young lady I haven't the honour of knowing, and he had the lying audacity to say that he came at her suggestion."

Stuart tried to speak and his tongue refused to move.

"I was frank enough to inform him that he was a liar. For which, of course, I had to apologize. Well, you've helped me to-night, boy, more than I can tell you. It helps an old man to look into the eyes of youth and renew his faith. Good-night!"

The doctor began to lower the lights, and Stuart said mechanically:

"Good-night!"

In a stupor of blind despair he slowly fumbled his way up to his room, entered, and threw himself across the bed without undressing. It was one thing to preach, another to face the thing itself alone in the darkness.

Through the shadows of the long night he lay with wide staring eyes, gazing at the vision which would not vanish--the face of the woman he loved--cold, white, pulseless, terrible in its beauty, dead.

CHAPTER VIII

STRUGGLE

The longer Stuart wrestled with the problem of Nan's yielding to the lure of Bivens's gold the more hideous and hopeless it became. He cursed her in one breath, and with the next stretched out his arms in the darkness in desperate voiceless longing.

He rose at last and stood looking out his window on the moonlit Square.

He began to feel that he had been to blame. Why had he allowed the foolish pride of a lovers' quarrel to keep them apart for two weeks? A clock in a distant tower struck three. The radiance of the massed lights of Broadway still glowed in the sky and dimmed the glory of the moon. The roar of the elevated trains sounded unusually loud and sinister. Perhaps because Bivens was on their board of directors. The whistle of their air brakes seemed to hiss his name. A crowd of revellers passed in a cab, with their feet out the windows, singing a drunken song. There was something sickening in the thought of this swiftly moving remorseless rush of a city's endless life. After all, was Nan worse than others--thousands of others caught in the merciless grip of its eternal spell?

The clock struck five, he looked out the window, startled by the first soft light of the dawn.

He came downstairs, let himself out of the front door and began to walk furiously. When at last he became conscious of his surroundings he had reached Central Park and was seated in the little summer house on a big pile of boulders near the Sixth Avenue entrance. The sun was rising. It was the first sunrise he had ever seen in New York. The effect on his imagination was startling. The red rays streaming through the park and the chirp of birds in the bushes were magic touches that transformed the world. He was back again in the South, where Nature is the one big fact of life, and the memories of the girl he had learned to love beside its beautiful waters again overwhelmed him.

He rose with a cry of pain, plunged into the crowds streaming downtown to their work and, scarcely conscious of anything save the ache within, found himself again in his room. He disarranged his bed that his sleepless night might not excite comment. He was just a little ashamed that his loss of poise had been so complete and overwhelming.

When he came downstairs he paused at the door. Harriet was playing and singing again, and the soft tones of her voice were healing. He walked gently to the door of the music-room, leaned against the panel, and watched and listened.

She played, not as a schoolgirl practising a lesson, but with a lingering touch of joy in her work caressing each note. The thrill of hope and faith in her voice was soothing. It soothed the wounded soul and slowly brought a smile to his face.

At last she stopped reluctantly, tipped her golden head sideways in a coquettish little triumphant movement, and in the quaintest imitation of a man's voice said: