"If you will light your pipe and go on smoking. It makes me nervous to
have people hang on the brink of things."

He lighted the pipe, wondering what other thing he might do to allay her
nervousness. None the less, he would not go back from his purpose, which
was barrier-building.

"I have thought, wholly without warrant, perhaps, that your loss in this
railroad steal has had something to do with the postponement of your
happiness--and Ormsby's. Has it?"

"And if it should have?"

"I merely wanted to say that we still have a fighting chance. But one of
the hard and fast conditions is that every individual stockholder shall
hang on to his or her holdings like grim death."

She caught her breath with a little gasp.

"The encouragement comes too late for us. We have parted with our stock."

Kent turned cold and hot and cold again while she was saying it. Then the
lawyer in him came uppermost.

"Is it gone beyond recall? How much too late am I?" he demanded.

"My mother wrote the letter to-day. She had an offer from some one in New
York."

Kent was on his feet instantly.

"Has that letter been mailed? Because if it has, it must be stopped by
wire!"

Miss Brentwood rose.

"It was on the hall table this afternoon; I'll go and see," and in a
moment she returned with the letter in her hand.

Kent took it from her as if it had been an edged weapon or a can of high
explosives.

"Heavens! what a turn you gave me!" he said, sitting down again. "Can I
see your mother?"

"I think she has gone to bed. What do you want to do?"

"I want to tell her that she mustn't do any such suicidal thing as this."

"You don't know my mother," was the calm reply. "Mr. Ormsby said
everything he could think of."

"Then we must take matters into our own hands. Will you help me?"

"How?" she asked.

"By keeping your own counsel and trusting me. Your mother supposes this
letter has gone: it has gone--this way." He tore the sealed envelope
across and across and dropped the pieces into his pocket. "Now we are
safe--at least until the man at the other end writes again."

It shocked her a little, and she did not promise to be a party to the
subterfuge. But neither did she say she would not.

"I am willing to believe that you have strong reasons for taking such
strong measures," she said. "May I know them?"

Kent's gift of reticence came to his rescue in time to prevent the
introduction of another and rather uncertain factor i