It was easy to see that the “butterfly” of fashion was gravely impressed. It was none of the Dickie Doubleday’s crumpled rose leaves which had brought the pale-faced man to the luxurious sky parlors of the “Elmleaf.” His merry face was soberly overshadowed. With little formality, Jimmy Potter closed the door into the rooms where the two women were engaged, and, not without a glance of impelled admiration at the statuesque stenographer, broke into a confidence which astounded Vreeland. “Hear me out first, Vreeland,” he soberly said, “and then help me if you can. I’m off on the steamer for Havre to-morrow. To join Hathorn’s widow.” Vreeland started, but Potter’s outstretched arm kept him in his chair. “Poor Fred was drowned two days ago by the upsetting of a boat at Cienfuegos. The fact is, the Cuban authorities were after him, and so, he cleared out of Havana.” “I’ve sent a good man down there to do all that may be done, in a decent respect for his past. Mrs. Hathorn has just cabled for me. I have had a long letter from her. “Some damned traitor deliberately gave her the dead cross on the ‘Sugar Deal.’ She was trying to get Fred out of the Street. And so, she plunged on fifty thousand shares of Sugar on this lying tip, came out short, and has to pay, as Hathorn shoved all their customers’ money in to hold over his own huge, private gamble until the market broke down to forty. It’s up to seventy-eight and there to stay. Now, she wishes to make restitution to the men whom the firm robbed. And I have to help her settle her own private losses.” “Poor woman,” murmured Vreeland, with an agitation which did not escape Potter. The little man was all broken up. “See here, Vreeland!” cried Potter, “I have had a glimpse into a real woman’s heart. This fatal quarrel with the Willoughby has wrecked two lives. Hathorn believed Mrs. Willoughby to be invincible in the Street. “He tried to follow her game. She is reported to have dealt in Sugar up to several millions. “Do you suppose that she laid a trap for Hathorn’s wife to fall into? Who gave her the false tips? I hope that the author of this misery will roast in hell.” “I know nothing. I am not in speculative stocks,” musingly said Vreeland. “Someone may have taken advantage of the Hathorns and lured them on by pretending to give them Mrs. Willoughby’s game. I am busied here now, half the day, with my own private matters.” “It was soul-murder, whoever did it,” said Potter. “Alida Hathorn went in nobly to help and save her husband. To aid him, to square him with the Street and his firm, and then to take him forever out of the turmoil and convoy him over to Europe. She has loads of money, you know. But, the Ring was too much for him. “He plunged, too, on her tip, and then came the crash, his flight, and now his untimely death. It’s all due to the one who lured Alida Hathorn on to ruin her husband. It was a fiend’s work.” A silence reigned, a gloomy acquiescence.