rthington?"

A wild idea came to him that the bank employees might have stolen
the money, lured Clayton into some Bowery or Fourth Avenue dive,
some room on Eighth Street, and then stolen the tell-tale bank-book.
"What would not any man do for a quarter of a million?" groaned
Ferris in despair.

And all these long days, while the New York community was daily
forgetting the flight of Clayton, the theft, and the dead millionaire
to whom all the worshippers of the Golden Calf had bowed, the
"Mesopotamia" was slowly nearing Stettin, now breasting the North
Sea surges.

Irma Gluyas, awakened from her narcotic stupor, felt in her wild,
wayward heart that Mr. August Meyer had lied to her.

But there was an apparent peace on the liner. The passionate-hearted
singer amused the captain and half deceived her watchful tyrant.

But, deep in her heart, she had evolved a plan. Once safely in
Stettin, she would telegraph to Clayton.

True, she had no money; but her fingers were covered with flashing
rings. Partner of some of Fritz Braun's smuggling secrets, she was
free of all crime, but the desire to innocently lure Clayton away
while the Cattle Trust's safes could be robbed in the holidays.

Step by step her old-time paramour had lured her on to betray
Randall Clayton, and yet, at the last, the good angel struggled
with the spirit of evil in that stormy heart. There was a smiling
calm on Fritz Braun's face which did not deceive her. She knew
that the great game had been pulled off. But how--with what golden
harvest--she knew not.

And yet she marked Braun's trembling hands, the lines graven on
his face, his deep potations, his fierce fever to reach the land.
And so, deep in her heart, she swore, "If he has harmed him, it is
his life or mine!"

Gazing out on the leaden surges of the ocean, she could see the face
of her manly lover, the one man who had believed in her underlying
womanhood. There was no stain on the red roses worn on her breast
for him; only truth in her gleaming Magyar eyes. "He loved me, for
what he saw in me--the innocent woman that I once was." And bitter
tears mingled with the salt brine flashing by--the tears of a
repentent magdalen.

Fritz Braun never knew that the woman who submitted to his caresses
was a spirit of wrath. Fool in his own conceit, he was yet watchful.
If she makes a single false move at Stettin, she seals her own
fate, he darkly pledged his familiar demon. And so, stealthily
eyin