our return. All that I wish to know is whether I shall deal
with you or Wade in giving my final answer to the suspended orders
for me to go West."

"You stand ready to throw up a life position?" harshly cried Ferris,
white with secret rage pausing with his hand on the door.

"I shall certainly wait until I hear from Mr. Worthington,"
gravely answered Clayton. "It matters little about me. Your own
life position is secure!"

"What do you mean by that?" cried Ferris, springing forward in a
sudden anger which made him forget all his plans of crafty concealment.

But the tall Westerner, with one wave of his arm, swept Ferris'
delicate form away from the door and passed out of the presence of
the budding capitalist.

Arthur Ferris cast stealthy glances to right and left as he sought
the elevator. He breathed freer when he reached the sidewalk.

Fortunately, no one had overheard the unseemly quarrel.

His hand was on the carriage door when his glances fell upon the
questioning face of Emil Einstein.

"Anything further, sir?" demanded the eager office boy. "Yes! Jump
in with me and ride down to the Pennsylvania Ferry. I may need
you."

Ferris' brain was in a whirl. He had intended to double around
and reach Wade's house, where he was a secret guest, during the
excitable ordeal of the election.

Too well he knew the dangers of setting his own foot in Wall Street.
Keen brokers, great operators, lynx-eyed newspaper reporters would
soon corner him.

His slightest word would be misconstrued, and there was still time
for some unforeseen plot before the polls of the stockholders'
election closed at three o'clock.

Clayton's defiant manner had aroused his jealousy to a keen rage.
"Does the fool know anything of my marriage?" he mused. "How could
he?" Ferris smiled, for his girl wife was still in Tacoma, by her
father's side, and the marriage had been a secret one.

The crafty lawyer hated Clayton, at heart, for too well he knew that
no word clouding Clayton's character could be uttered unchallenged
in Alice Worthington's presence.

Once he had tried, to probe her opinions, with faint sneers, but
his voice had died away under the indignant protest of the heiress.

"I do not know who has poisoned my father's mind," resolutely said
the Little Sister, "but Randall Clayton has been the brother of my
heart, and always will be. If he had never left us we would all
be happier to-day."

The clear-browed woman did not