lve, born of the fear of the disguised felon, floating uneasily
in the maelstrom of a great city. "If she should betray me, and
women are women, after all," he mused in his cowardly ferocity.
"If she pulls this off for me, I'll"--he ceased, with an inward
shudder, for he dared not give the awful thought its fitting frame.

"Only at the last," he murmured, as he sped along in Brooklyn's
dingy water streets to take on another mask to veil his wolfishly
evil life.

While snares and pitfalls were being laid for Randall Clayton's
careless feet, that gentleman sat in a wrathful mood, pondering
over Arthur Ferris' half-hearted disclosures. Clayton's face had
frankly disclosed his displeasure at the false attitude of his
chum, when Ferris reluctantly disclosed the fact of the secret
financial espionage.

The three years of their past intimacy now took on a different
color, at once, to the jaundiced eyes of the young cashier.

He had almost abruptly declined Ferris' invitation to spend Sunday
at Seneca Lake, with the prosperous lawyer's mother and two sisters.

A feeling of bitter envy gnawed at Clayton's heart as he counted
up the rapid rise of his quondam friend.

"So, he has been playing this double game for years; it must have
been at Worthington's bidding. And why?"

It began to dawn at last upon Clayton that his Detroit patron had
certainly followed a singular course in his apparent beneficence.

All unused to social intrigue, Clayton ignored the possible effect
of his further presence in Worthington's household as an attractive
young man when little Alice, at a bound, passed through the gates
of girlhood and became the beautiful Miss Worthington. He had
never seen the angel at his side, and yet Ferris, clearer eyed,
had conquered in silent craft a golden future.

Clayton lingered at his table in the Grand Union cafe long after the
waiter had removed his half-tasted dinner. He ordered an unaccustomed
"highball" as he pondered over some means of circumventing the
social treason of his dethroned "friend."

Clayton easily found a valid reason, for the semi-treason of Ferris.

"He is, after all, a stranger to me. His ambition leads him onward
and upward. He would tread on my body gladly in mounting to the
great monopolist's confidence. It is easy enough to see why Ferris
has played both the spy and lickspittle. It has paid him well.
Here's a jump to handling Worthington's power of attorney. Of course,
F