e which completed Wade's thorough
annoyance. "Stop, sir; stop! Think before you throw away all your
chances in life! You can have a whole day to think this over. Would
you forfeit Mr. Worthington's regard and so lose your place?"

There was a strident anger in the manager's harsh voice. But Clayton,
realizing that he had even till now not been able to gain Irma's
pictured face, looked forward to the heart-wreck of this enforced
absence. "If I am to be cast out like a dog after my faithful
service, then you must do it, sir," gravely said Clayton, Witherspoon's
warnings returning to stiffen his resolution. "Why not await Mr.
Ferris' arrival? I may be able to reach Mr. Worthington's second
thoughts through him." The agent of the two far off conspirators
lost his self-control at last.

"I'll await nothing," roared Robert Wade. "That will do, sir!" And
as the defiant Clayton retired, the manager rang for a telegraph
boy.

"I have given them checkmate," mused Clayton, as he snapped his
door behind him. "Their plans probably included making away with
me, out West, after Ferris has done his work and returns to openly
claim Alice's hand. It is a fight for my life now. I must reach
Irma at once. I must tell her all."

Suddenly he thought of the future. His heart sickened. "Wade will
undoubtedly recommend my discharge. If Jack fails me, I am then
to be cast out in the streets, and the influence of the Trust will
surely keep me from holding any other position longer than they
can find out where to reach me."

He absently broke the seals of a couple of letters dropped on his
desk in his brief absence.

He sprang up, a new man, as he read Jack Witherspoon's few words.
The missive was dated from Paris. It bore in its light-hearted
chatter a few words which sealed his fate in life.

"Am coming home at once. Will be with you in ten days. Let nothing
prevent our meeting in New York. Will act instantly in your matter.
Have had private news. They were secretly married a month ago at
Tacoma. Be on your guard!"

Seizing his hat, Randall Clayton hurried away to the nearest
telegraph office, where he felt safe from Robert Wade's spies.

"Thank God for Irma's wit," he said, in his heart, as he sent the
veiled words which would bring her to that quiet hotel on Staten
Island, where, among Richmond's leafy bowers, they now defied all
possible detection. It had been her own plan. The long weeks of
Clayton's complete self-surrende