loor in his
room, refusing to be comforted. All was dark before the older man--the
future hopeless. Before the younger man was still hope.

And in her room Lillian Cowperwood turned and tossed in the face of this
new calamity. For it had suddenly appeared from news from her father and
Frank and Anna and her mother-in-law that Frank was about to fail, or
would, or had--it was almost impossible to say just how it was. Frank
was too busy to explain. The Chicago fire was to blame. There was no
mention as yet of the city treasurership. Frank was caught in a trap,
and was fighting for his life.

In this crisis, for the moment, she forgot about the note as to his
infidelity, or rather ignored it. She was astonished, frightened,
dumbfounded, confused. Her little, placid, beautiful world was going
around in a dizzy ring. The charming, ornate ship of their fortune was
being blown most ruthlessly here and there. She felt it a sort of duty
to stay in bed and try to sleep; but her eyes were quite wide, and her
brain hurt her. Hours before Frank had insisted that she should not
bother about him, that she could do nothing; and she had left him,
wondering more than ever what and where was the line of her duty. To
stick by her husband, convention told her; and so she decided. Yes,
religion dictated that, also custom. There were the children. They must
not be injured. Frank must be reclaimed, if possible. He would get over
this. But what a blow!

Chapter XXXI

The suspension of the banking house of Frank A. Cowperwood & Co.
created a great stir on 'change and in Philadelphia generally. It was so
unexpected, and the amount involved was comparatively so large. Actually
he failed for one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars;
and his assets, under the depressed condition of stock values, barely
totaled seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. There had been
considerable work done on the matter of his balance-sheet before it
was finally given to the public; but when it was, stocks dropped an
additional three points generally, and the papers the next day devoted
notable headlines to it. Cowperwood had no idea of failing permanently;
he merely wished to suspend temporarily, and later, if possible, to
persuade his creditors to allow him to resume. There were only two
things which stood in the way of this: the matter of the five hundred
thousand dollars borrowed from the city treasury at a ridiculously low
rate of intere