"The mountains still stand—and there are cottages there where even a very poor man may find shelter. I would rather have it, with you, than to own Manhattan Island without you."
There was a knock at the door of the private office, and Edwardes, rising from his knees, went to receive the message. He came back very gravely.
"I have to face an unpleasant interview, dearest," he said. "One of those bankers who were crushed as incidents to my ruin—who was guilty only of standing in your brother's path, is here. I'm told that he is half-mad, and I must do what I can." He opened a door into a small conference-room. "Will you wait for me—there?"
With his arm around her he led her across the threshold, and then, closing that door, he came back and opened the other.
The man who half-stepped, half-stumbled in staggered to the desk chair and dropped into it to raise a face in which the eyes burned wildly. The whole figure shook in an ague of unnerved excitement. He spread two trembling hands and tragically announced, "I'm ruined."
Edwardes nodded gravely. "You need a physician, Fairley. You're unstrung," he suggested. "Perhaps a drop of brandy would help. I think I have some here."
"No!" the reply was violent, and the President of the Metallic National shook his head with the uncontrolled air of a man who is close to the border of insanity. "No, by God, I'm past physicians. What I need next is an undertaker." He dropped his head to the desk and broke into a crazed storm of weak sobs.
"There is no profit in wild talk," his host reminded him. "I'm ruined, too. We must make a fresh start."
"Fresh start, hell!" The words rang queerly through the accompaniment of a bitter laugh. "Hamilton Burton took me and squeezed me dry. He put the thumbscrews on me and bled me of my Coal and Ore stock. He made me a traitor to Malone and today when Malone might have saved me I had no friends. Then because you sought to befriend me, Burton turned on me and ruined me. My family will be in the streets. Now—" the voice rose into a high treble of frenzy which penetrated to the room where Mary Burton waited—"I'm going to kill Hamilton Burton first and myself next."
With the wild threat the banker rose unsteadily and his palsied hand went into his overcoat pocket, to come out clutching a magazine pistol which he brandished before him.