"It was very good of them to wait so long," he said significantly. "I think I am just about ready now." "What do you mean, Hamilton?" Paul bent forward and spoke with alarm. "Mean!" Hamilton came to his feet and his anger snapped across the table like a powerful current leaping a broken wire. He took up a delicately fashioned statuette of porcelain and tossed it to the stone flagging of the hearth where it lay shivered. He walked over and contemptuously kicked some of the fragments toward the open fire. "Mean! I mean that I shall treat him like that. What's left when I'm through Mary can have--for a wedding or a funeral whichever seems most suitable." For once in his life a flame of resistance and momentary courage leaped up in Paul Burton. "You shall do nothing of the sort," he vehemently declared. "Mary is my blood and your blood and my mother's blood. You sha'n't sacrifice her, merely because she loves a man whom you hate." "Stop!" Hamilton raised his hands warningly. "Don't throw yourself to the enemy, Paul. Don't make an irreconcilable breach between us. I don't find fault with your sympathy. I should hate you if you didn't feel it--but this man Edwardes is doomed. Nothing can save him. If heaven itself fought for him, I would make war on heaven, whoever attempts to thwart me--even if it be you, Paul, shall go with him to ruin. We won't talk of this again." * * * * * Mary Burton awoke one morning to see, through her window blinds, a mixture of snow and rain falling from low-hanging clouds; yet her lips parted in a smile. She glanced at the clock by her bed. It was eleven. In just one week and sixty minutes she and Jefferson Edwardes would be standing at the altar. She threw a dressing-gown about her, and, slipping her small pink feet into small pink slippers, crossed idly to the window. Then with a face that in an instant went white with a premonition of disaster, she wheeled on Julie and her voice came in an agitated whisper. "What are they calling extras about? Get me a paper quick." When a few minutes later a sheet still damp from the presses lay before her she needed only the flaring headlines to corroborate her fears. With throbbing temples she swayed unsteadily as she made her way to a chair and sank down, gripping the paper tightly in a clenched fist. Four words were hammering themselves into her brain and heart: "Stock-Exchange in Frenzy." ... Her apathy of inactivity lasted only a few moments. Then she came to her feet and, instead of panic, resolution sounded through her voice. "Dress me, Julie," she commanded. "Dress me quickly. I must be down-town at once. 'Phone for the car. Don't waste an instant." At least she would be there--where battle was raging. "But, mademoiselle, in an hour you are due for a fitting--your wedding-gown." "Don't stop to talk--hurry!" Her wedding-gown! She wondered if she would ever need it.