Bold, intrigant, as he was, Vreeland paled, and the blood left his heart as he listened to Elaine Willoughby’s last orders. It was a most momentous message. “Telegraph instantly down over private wire, to Cashier Mineralogical Bank. For my order, _buy in_, at once—on this board—forty thousand shares of Sugar in lots of one to five thousand shares. Do not leave the instrument for one moment, till you report the execution back to me. Have them telegraph to you the buying rate of each lot and report when all is bought in. Then I will come to the Waldorf and send over for you. “I will sign the checks myself there at the hotel. Keep the messengers there in your room with the stocks. I have suite No. 700 in the hotel.” Mary Kelly’s flying fingers had recorded the momentous message in shorthand as it fell from Hathorn’s pallid lips, and, her fingers then pressed the telegraph key with lightning rapidity. Vreeland was dazed. “My God, this is ruin for her,” he whispered. It was of the Lady of the Red Rose he spoke. “You must sit here, sir, and record for me,” cried the girl. “They are holding me on the wire.” The agony of hell was in the heart of the entrapped scoundrel. He knew that his whole personal future now depended on executing his mistress’ behests with lightning rapidity. There was no way to warn Alida Hathorn. He dared not trust Bagley—a spy, perhaps. One hasty sentence of explanation and he sat down at the table, beside the girl, while far away at the Circassia, Elaine Willoughby eagerly awaited the warning ring of the telephone bell. In three-quarters of an hour, Vreeland staggered to the speaking tube. “The whole order is covered,” he reported, “opening price, forty-nine; closing price, seventy-three. I will await you here.” With a sickening heart, the would-be traitor watched Mary Kelly adding up the scheduled lots and averaging the prices. “The whole forty thousand shares average us sixty-four dollars,” she whispered, pushing the paper over to him, as she bent over her clicking key. “There has been a terrific rise. Failures on the Street are reported. Sugar is going up with jumps. Market practically bare.” “My God!” groaned Vreeland, as he hid his face for a few moments in his own room. “This will be her ruin. Poor Alida. Forty thousand shares left to cover, means a loss of three-quarters of a million.” And then his own white face stared back at him, in the glass as his trembling lips refused to frame the question: “Did Elaine know of his treachery?” For, it seemed that his sin had found him out. He dared not even for a single moment leave the presence of the girl who was now recording each message from the cashier of the bank, announcing the departure of the agents with each lot of the stocks as bought in. “Was it a blind pool to break and make a market?” he queried.