d
won because they had lost, and how many others!

"How could I help it?" he said to himself uneasily, and answered it
immediately with another question "But will they believe me?"

Suddenly Drake's last question flashed across him with a new
significance. "Of course you didn't tell any one, did you?"

Why had he not asked him then and there what he had meant? Because he
had been afraid, because he did not wish to know the answer, just as he
had evaded the knowledge that Doris in the first speculation had made
use of Boskirk. Even now he did not wish to force the ugly fact--seeking
to put it from him with plausible reasonings. After all, what had Drake
done? Told him a lie? No. He had specially cautioned him not to jump to
conclusions, warned him against doing anything on his own initiative.

"Yes, that's true," he said with a sigh of relief, as though a great
ethical question had been disposed of. "He played square, absolutely
square. There's nothing wrong in it."

Yet somehow the conviction brought no joy with it; there was something
stolen about the sensation of sudden wealth which possessed him. He
seemed to be scurrying through the shadowy city almost like a thief
afraid of confrontation.

Yet there was the home-coming, the friends to be faced. What answer
could he make them, how announce the stroke of fortune which had come to
him! On one thing at least he was resolved, and the resolution seemed to
lighten the weight of many problems which would not slip from his
shoulders. He was responsible for Roscy and Fred--at least they should
suffer no loss for having taken his advice. The others--Forshay, the
firm, one or two acquaintances he had tipped off in the last days, the
outsiders; they were different, and besides he did not want to think of
them. His friends should not suffer loss--not even a dollar. They were a
part of the pool, in a way. Of course they had had their friends, though
he had sworn them to secrecy. At this point he stopped in his mental
turnings, faced by a sudden barrier.

Had Drake knowingly used him to convey a false impression of his
intentions, made him the instrument of ruining others in order to carry
through his stupendous coup de force?

"If I thought that," he said hotly, "I wouldn't touch a cent of it!" But
after a moment, uneasily and in doubt, he added, "I wonder?"

He came to the Court and hurried in. Lights were blazing in the
bay-window, black silhouettes across the panes.