"Sorry I'm late, gentlemen, but I've done the trick--this packet----" he rocked a little. "By Gad, I believe I'm going to faint." He tottered forward into Isabel's arms and said--"It's you--how ripping!" That was all. Cassis pushed forward with the words: "Has he got it--has he got it?" "This is what you want, I suppose," said Isabel, and taking the letter case from his pocket, threw it on the table. "He's fainted. Help me get him to his bed." Doran and she half carried and half dragged him from the room. No one was aware of Auriole, who had entered just behind and stood now with her back to the wall, biting her lip. After all, when a game is won, pawns are relatively of little importance--except to themselves. "Signed? Registered?" said Van Diest, edging forward. Nugent Cassis held the crackling document before his eyes--a Concession to Millions--and he answered between his teeth: "Signed and registered." "So," said Van Diest, with unexpected control, "we lose--Finish." But his hands trembled as he turned away. Ezra P. Hipps did not desert his post at the telephone until he heard those words. Then he snapped viciously, "Say, cancel those orders, Phillips--Wash out the lot." It was too ridiculous at such a moment to contemplate the price of victory, but that is precisely what Auriole did. "And you've never asked--never given a thought to the real man--the man who made it possible--who stayed out there on the road while----" She bit back her tears and turned savagely on Hipps and Van Diest. "Oh, God," she cried, "if anything has happened to him." But nothing had--if you discount a little discomfort bravely borne. He walked into the room even as she spoke. Dirty he was, dishevelled and hollow-eyed, a very travesty of his former self. But there was a spring in his bearing that fires of adversity had failed to rob of its temper. He entered with a swing, a certain jauntiness--a dash of _nonchaloir_--pushing his way through the group of astonished financiers in the doorway and marching up to Van Diest and the American with a very fine air of "you be damned" about the carriage of his head. "Get out," he said, uncompromisingly. "And tomorrow morning I'm coming down to Charing Cross to see you off by the Continental." They both addressed him simultaneously and in very different tones to the ones he had grown accustomed to during the past three weeks. The word "cheque" figured largely in their proposals. Richard Frencham Altar cut them short with: "Cheque from you? No, thanks. I'll take the smallest coin in each of your countries to wear on my watch chain. It'll remind me of my dealings with two millionaires. That train goes at ten tomorrow morning." Ezra P. Hipps happened to see the light in Auriole's eyes as he and Van Diest moved toward the door. It was quite unmistakable and from his point of view, conclusive. He said nothing, however, and they passed out in silence.