For a week the panic held the financial world in the grip of death. A dozen banks had closed their doors and a score of men who had long boasted their courage among men had died the death of cowards when put to the test.

One of the most curious results of the panic was the revulsion of popular feeling against the daring and honest young officer of the law who had rendered the greatest service to the people wrought by any public servant in a generation.

His enemies saw their opportunity. When the panic was at its worst they opened their artillery of slander and falsehood. The people who yesterday had shouted his praises for the fearless work in their behalf joined his enemies and vied with each other now in reviling him. He was hailed as the arch traitor of the people, the man who had used his high office to produce a panic and carve a fortune out of the ruin of millions whose deposits were tied up in banks that might never again open their doors.

Stuart, stung to desperation by their infamous charges, attempted at first to repel them. He stopped at last in disgust and maintained afterward a dignified silence.

From the first day of the run Bivens had laughed in the face of the crowd that besieged the door of his big Broadway bank. He stood on top of the granite steps and shouted in their faces:

"Come on, you dirty cowards! I've got your money inside waiting for you, every dollar of it, one hundred cents on the dollar!"

The crowd made no reply. They merely moved up in line in stolid silence a little closer to the door. Each day this line had grown longer.

Bivens was not worrying. The king had spoken. The people outside did the worrying. They had lost faith in everything and every man. What they wanted was cash. They camped on the doorstep at night and in grim silence held their place in line.

The folly of these people in their insane efforts to wreck Bivens's bank was making impossible a return to normal business.

Stuart determined to face this crowd and have it out with them. He believed that a bold appeal to their reason would silence his critics and allay their insane fears.

He told Bivens of his purpose over the telephone, and the financier protested vigorously:

"Don't do it, Jim, I beg of you," he pleaded. "It will be a waste of breath. Besides, you risk your life."

"I'll be there when the bank opens at ten o'clock to-morrow morning,"

was the firm answer.

Stuart left his office at three and hurried to his room. He wished to be alone and collect the vague ideas of passionate appeal which he felt rioting through his mind. He stood by his window looking across the square. The fall winds had strewn the grass with dead leaves and the half-bare limbs swayed desolately. The big houses on the north side, were unusually quiet. He could see crepe fluttering from two doors. The widow of the dead president of a suspended bank lived in one of them; in the other the widow of a great man who was found dead in his office the second day of the panic. He had been buried yesterday.

A feeling of stupid depression crept over his senses, and held them in its deadly embrace. He couldn't think. He gave up the effort and asked Harriet to go with him for a ramble over the hills, up the Hudson. They took the subway to the end of the line, climbed to the top of the hills overlooking the river, sat down in the woods on a fallen tree and watched the sun slowly sink in scarlet glory behind the Palisades.

Neither had spoken for several minutes. He loved these rambles with his slender golden-haired little pal, because it wasn't necessary to talk.

She had developed the rarest of all gifts among womankind, a genius for silence. He wondered at it, too, for she was such a little chatterbox as a kid.

A squirrel climbed down from a tree nearby where he was storing his winter food, paused, and looked up in surprise at his unexpected visitors. Stuart smiled and pressed Harriet's hand, nodding toward the squirrel. She smiled an answer in silence. The faintest little flush tinged the smooth white skin of her neck at the touch of his hand, but he never noticed it.

A ruffled grouse suddenly sprang on the end of the log, cocked his head in surprise and stood trembling with fear, uncertain whether the intruders in his domain were friend or foe.

Harriet saw him first, gently pressed Stuart's hand and whispered:

"Look, Jim."

As Stuart turned his head, the bird rose with a roar that brought a cry of terror to the girl's lips. Involuntarily she gripped his hand and nestled closer.

"Scared you out of a year's growth, didn't he?"

"He certainly did."

"What a flood of memories the whir of those wings brings back to my tired soul," Stuart dreamily cried; "of woods and fields and hills and valleys of the South, where men and women yet live a sane human life!

I'd begun to forget there were any hills and fields."

"I wish I lived down South, Jim!"

"Why?"

"I don't know, it's just an idea of mine. I suppose I get it from hearing you tell about their old-fashioned ways, their neighbourly habits and the sweet home life."

The man was silent. The deep soft note of a mallard drake far above the treetops caused him to look up.

He seized Harriet's arm.

"Watch now, little pal--the river--you'll see a flock of ducks swing into that open space under the sun!"

He had scarcely spoken when the ducks circled the broad sweep of the river in a graceful curve, their wings flashing in the rays of the setting sun, and slowly one at a time dropped their feet and pitched in the little smooth bay at the foot of the hill. The sun was just sinking behind the tree tops on the Palisades, lighting the calm mirror-like surface of the water with every colour of the rainbow.

"Now, look behind you, dear!" Stuart exclaimed.

"Why, it's the moon just rising, isn't it? I never saw the moon rising through the treetops before. It's glorious, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's full moon to-night. See how high the tide is on the river banks. It's just high water now--the highest, fullest tide of the month. It will be less to-morrow and the next and the next day until it falls back to its lowest point two weeks from now, then starts climbing up again for the next full moon. Every sailor, man and bird, knows this. I wonder how many men and women in this money-mad city know that the tide ever ebbs and flows around Manhattan Island at all."

"It's wonderful--isn't it?"

"What dear, the men and women of New York or the tides?"

"Both, Jim, when we try to understand them, isn't it all God's work?"

"I don't know, child. I sometimes think God made the world and only man or the devil built the cities afterward. I believe the reason why the spirit grows savage and we forget that we are human here so often is that we never see the sun or moon. We never hear the stir of wings in the sky, feel the throb of Nature's heart in the ebb and flow of tides, or walk with our heads among the stars."

Harriet sat in thoughtful silence a while and a curious searching look crept into her eyes as she softly asked:

"You have seen much of Mr. Bivens lately, Jim--I've wondered if you have never yet looked your dead love in the face?"

"No, little pal."

"You are still afraid?"

An answer started to his lips and he choked it back.

She laid her warm hand on his.

"Tell me, I want to help you. We _are_ pals, you know."

"Well, I'm ashamed to confess it dear, but I am afraid, horribly afraid! I've been fighting some grim battles, but I'll have to see her sooner or later."

"I wish you wouldn't," the girl said, wistfully.

"I'll try to keep away--but every turn in the wheel seems only to bring us closer. My association with Bivens in this prosecution of crime was not of my choosing, but it came. I shall be compelled to see him often."