said Garcide, plaintively, "why you never open your heart to
me, Hilda?"

"I wonder, too," she said; "my father did."

Garcide turned his flushed face to the window.

Years before, when the firm of Garcide & Castle went to pieces, Peter
Castle stood by the wreck to the end, patching it with his last dollar.
But the wreck broke up, and he drifted piteously with the debris until a
kindly current carried him into the last harbor of all--the port of
human derelicts.

Garcide, however, contrived to cling to some valuable flotsam and
paddle into calm water, and anchor.

After a few years he built a handsome house above Fiftieth Street; after
a few more years he built a new wing for Saint Berold's Hospital; and
after a few more years he did other things equally edifying, but which,
if mentioned, might identify him.

Church work had always interested him. As a speculation in moral
obligation, he adopted Peter Castle's orphan, who turned to him in a
passion of gratitude and blind devotion. And as she bade fair to rival
her dead mother in beauty, and as rich men marry beauty when it is in
the market, the Hon. John Garcide decided to control the child's future.
A promise at ten years is quickly made, but he had never forgotten it,
and she could not forget.

And now Garcide needed her as he needed mercy from Ophir Steel, which
was slowly crushing his own steel syndicate to powder.

The struggle between Steel Plank and James J. Crawford's Ophir Steel is
historical. The pure love of fighting was in Crawford; he fought Garcide
to a standstill and then kicked him, filling Garcide with a mixture of
terror and painful admiration.

But sheer luck caught at Garcide's coat-tails and hung there. Crawford,
prowling in the purlieus of society, had seen Miss Castle.

The next day Crawford came into Garcide's office and accepted a chair
with such a humble and uneasy smile that Garcide mistook his
conciliatory demeanor and attempted to bully him. But when he found out
what Crawford wanted, he nearly fainted in an attempt to conceal his
astonishment and delight.

"Do you think I'd buy you off with an innocent child?" he said, lashing
himself into a good imitation of an insulted gentleman.

Crawford looked out of the window, then rose and walked towards the
door.

"Do you think you can bribe me?" shouted Garcide after him. Crawford
hesitated.

"Come back here," said Garcide, firmly; "I want you to explain
yourself."

"I can't,