68
XVIII 286
XIX 306
XX 328

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
"Are you afraid of yourself?" Frontispiece 233
"That's not John Marsh's will" 78
The agonized scream of a mother robbed of her young 175
Paula left the asylum office accompanied by the nurse 300

CHAPTER I.

When John Marsh, the steel man, died, there was considerable stir in the
inner circles of New York society. And no wonder. The wealthy
ironmaster's unexpected demise certainly created a most awkward
situation. It meant nothing less than the social rehabilitation of a
certain individual who, up to this time, had been openly snubbed, not to
say deliberately "cut" by everybody in town. In other words, Society was
compelled, figuratively speaking, to go through the humiliating and
distasteful performance of eating crow. Circumstances alter cases. While
the smart set was fully justified in making a brave show of virtuous
indignation when one of its members so far forgot himself as to get
kicked out of his club, it was only natural that the offending
gentleman's peccadilloes were to be regarded in a more indulgent light
when he suddenly fell heir to one of the biggest fortunes in the
country.

It was too bad about "Jimmy" Marsh. His reputation was unsavory and he
deserved all of it. Total lack of moral principle combined with an
indolent, shiftless disposition had given him a distorted outlook on
things. All his life he had been good for nothing, and at the age of
forty he found himself a nuisance to himself and everybody else. Yet he
was not without a natural cunning which sometimes passed for smartness,
but he often overreached himself and committed blunders of which a
clever man would never be guilty. To put it plainly, Jimmy was crooked.
Fond of a style of living which he was not able to afford and desperate
for funds with which to gratify his expensive tastes, he had foolishly
attempted to cheat at cards. His notions of honor and common decency had
always been nebulous, and when one night, in a friendly game, he
clumsily tried to deal himself an ace from the bottom of the deck, not
even the fact