reeted him with that degree of
mingled reserve and civility which is due to a man who has placed a
paper capable of effecting such a marked change in the hands of the most
self-contained banker in Bankers' Row.

A tap at the door announced an answer to the bell, and the next moment a
clerk came in.

"Ask Mr. Penwell to come here," said Mr. Creamer. "Mr. Penwell is the
head of our foreign department," he added in gracious explanation
to Keith.

"Mr. Keith, gentlemen, is largely interested in some of those Southern
mining properties that you have heard me speak of; and has just put
through a very fine deal with an English syndicate."

The door opened, and a cool-looking, slender man of fifty-odd, with a
thin gray face, thin gray hair very smoothly brushed, and keen gray
eyes, entered. He was introduced to Mr. Keith. After Mr. Creamer had
stated the purpose of Keith's visit and had placed the drafts in Mr.
Penwell's hands, the latter stated, as an interesting item just off the
ticker, that he understood Wentworth was in trouble. Some one had just
come and said that there was a run on his bank.

"Those attacks on him in the newspapers must have hurt him
considerably," observed one of the visitors.

"Yes, he has been a good deal hurt," said Mr. Creamer. "We are all
right, Penwell?" He glanced at his subordinate.

Mr. Penwell nodded with deep satisfaction.

"So are we," said one of the visitors. "This is the end of Wentworth &
Son. He will go down."

"He has been going down for some time. Wife too extravagant."

This appeared to be the general opinion. But Keith scarcely heard the
speakers. He stood in a maze.

The announcement of Norman's trouble had come to him like a
thunder-clap. And he was standing now as in a dream. Could it be
possible that Norman was going to fail? And if he failed, would this be
all it meant to these men who had known him always?

The vision of an old gentleman sitting in his home, which he had lost,
came back to him across the years.

"That young man is a gentleman," he heard him say. "It takes a gentleman
to write such a letter to a friend in misfortune. Write to him and say
we will never forget his kindness." He heard the same old gentleman say,
after years of poverty, "You must pay your debt though I give up
Elphinstone."

Was he not now forgetting Norman's kindness? But was it not too late?
Could he save him? Would he not simply be throwing away his money to
offer it to him? S