de perilous navigation through the narrow street. The
hooting of horns on taxi-cabs played a brisk accompaniment to the
mournful chant. Almost from the Courts to the trebly guarded entrance of
the Chancery Legal Incorporated Credit Society Bank stretched that deep
rank of victims. For, at the corner of Chancery Lane, the contents-bill
of a daily paper thus displayed, in suitable order of precedence, the
vital topics of the moment:

MISS PAULETTE DELOTUS _NOT_ MARRIED

Australians' Plucky Fight

IS SEVERAC BABLON IN VIENNA?

BIG CITY BANK SMASH

SLUMP IN NICARAGUAN RAILS

To some, those closed doors meant the sacrifice of jewellery, of some
part of the luxury of life; to others, they meant--the drop-curtain that
blacked out the future, the end of the act, the end of the play.

"Move along here, please! Move on! Move on!"

"All right, constable," said Sir Richard Haredale, smiling unmirthfully;
"I'll move on--and move out!"

He extricated himself from the swaying, groaning, cursing multitude, and
stepped across to the opposite side of the street. Lost in unpleasant
meditation, he stood, a spruce, military figure, bearing upon his
exterior nothing indicative of the ruined man. He was quite unaware of
the approach of a graceful, fair girl, whose fresh English beauty
already had enslaved the imaginations of some fifty lawyers' clerks
returning from lunch. As ignorant of her train of conquests as Haredale
was ignorant of her presence, she came up to him--and tears gleamed upon
her lashes. She stood beside him, and he did not see her.

"Dick!"

The voice aroused him, and a flush came upon his tanned, healthy-looking
face. A beam of gladness and admiration lost itself in a cloud, as
mechanically he raised his hat, and, holding the girl's hand, glanced
uneasily aside, fearing to meet the anxious tenderness in the blue eyes
which, now, were deepened to something nearer violet.

"It is true, then?" she asked softly.

He nodded, his lips grimly compressed.

"Who told you," he questioned in turn, "that I had my poor scrapings in
it?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said wearily. "And it doesn't matter much, does
it?"

"Come away somewhere," Haredale suggested. "We can't stand here."

In silence they walked away from the clamouring crowd of depositors.

"Move along here, please! Move on! Move on!"

"Where can we go?" asked the girl.

"Anywhere," said Haredale, "where we can sit down. This w