from our clutches. The old man
can cajole him with Alice's wish that he should join the family
party. That'll fetch him. Fool! that he did not make the running
while she was at his side. The 'Sister' business is always a rank
failure. But he has made me a millionaire for life."

Arthur Ferris had no pity for the man whose life secrets he
had sapped in those four long years of treason to friendship. He
recalled with a secret complacence the steps which had led him,
bit by bit, into Hugh Worthington's confidence, through the frank
disclosures of Clayton.

And so, fortified by the single-hearted man's intimate relations
with the Detroit household, Arthur Ferris had taken up every thread
as it slipped through Clayton's busy fingers.

The knowledge that he would enjoy Randall Clayton's real patrimony;
that he had stolen a charming wife from the man who was bound by
an unearned gratitude to Worthington, made this hour of triumph a
most delicious one.

"Old Hugh needed me; he needed a man who would be a safe intermediary
with Durham; one who was a Safe Deposit for both senator and
millionaire.

"Now I hold every trump in life, and Clayton, the dolt, has thrown
away his fortune and made mine."

Then the thin-lipped lawyer recalled Balzac's remark, "One, in
order to succeed, must either cut one's way through life like a
sword, or glide through the world quietly like a pestilence."

"I'll let Hugh use the sword," he laughed, as he enjoyed his
well-warmed Chamberton. "I am beyond all the storms of Fate now.

"What more could I desire? On the road to a million, a charming girl
wife, one whom I can mould like clay, and Durham and Worthington
can easily send me to Congress." He saw the Senate chamber opening
to him, through the rosy light of the wooing Burgundy.

And again his eye sought the telegrams. "Not a word to alter," and
he smiled as he read.

"Hugh Worthington,

"Palace Hotel, Tacoma:--

"A quiet election. All arranged. New officers published to-morrow.
Telegraph Clayton to meet you at Cheyenne for conference. Have Alice
join. Suggest month's vacation. He is irritable and suspicious.
Full code telegrams to you at Cheyenne. Will wait here until you
have met him and disposed of his case."

Ferris had added a key-word, which no one would suspect meant
"Imminent danger," and signed an alias known to Hugh Worthington
alone.

But to Randall Clayton his Judas words of brotherly cordiality were
as frank