e stood there a moment, without
speaking, without any definite thought. Then she left to send Langdon.

"Yes," Dumont reflected, "it was her duty. It's a woman's duty to be
forgiving and gentle and loving and pure--they're made differently from
men. It was unnatural, her ever going away at all. But she's a good
woman, and she shall get what she deserves hereafter. When I settle
this bill for my foolishness I'll not start another."

Duty--that word summed up his whole conception of the right attitude of
a good woman toward a man. A woman who acted from love might change
her mind; but duty was safe, was always there when a man came back from
wanderings which were mere amiable, natural weaknesses in the male.
Love might adorn a honeymoon or an escapade; duty was the proper
adornment of a home.

"I've just been viewing the wreck with Culver," he said, as Langdon
entered, dressed in the extreme of the latest London fashion.

"Much damage?"

"What didn't go in the storm was carried off by Giddings when he
abandoned the ship. But the hull's there and--oh, I'll get her off and
fix her up all right."

"Always knew Giddings was a rascal. He oozes piety and respectability.
That's the worst kind you have down-town. When a man carries so much
character in his face--it's like a woman who carries so much color in
her cheeks that you know it couldn't have come from the inside."

"You're wrong about Giddings. He's honest enough. Any other man would
have done the same in his place. He stayed until there was no hope of
saving the ship."

"All lost but his honor--Wall Street honor, eh?"

"Precisely."

After a pause Langdon said: "I'd no idea you held much of your own
stock. I thought you controlled through other people's proxies and
made your profits by forcing the stock up or down and getting on the
other side of the market."

"But, you see, I believe in Woolens," replied Dumont. "And I believe
in it still, Langdon!" His eyes had in them the look of the fanatic.

"That concern is breath and blood and life to me, and wife and children
and parents and brothers and sisters. I've put my whole self into it.
I conceived it. I brought it into the world. I nursed it and brought
it up. I made it big and strong and great. It's mine, by heaven!
MINE! And no man shall take it from me!"

He was sitting up, his face flushed, his eyes blazing. "Gad--he does
look a wild beast!" said Langdon to himself. He would have