The chill night breeze from the sea swept over the hill. Suddenly the girl shivered. And then, as he looked out upon the darkening sea and heard the solemn requiem sounding below the cliff, the voice of eternity and life and death speaking there unsealed his lips. The next moment Mona was clasped in his arms. "God help me, little girl," he said, "I love you." Later, the moon, smiling approval, rose out of the ocean, and when the two, now one, turned to go, once more he gathered her close to his heart. "You will come back now, won't you?" she said. And looking into the tear-wet eyes upraised to his, he kissed her once, twice, thrice. "Surely," he answered, "my heart is here now." CHAPTER XXVIII ON 'CHANGE In Wall Street, the most gigantic gambling Mecca the world knows, where millions change hands every hour of the five of howling delirium that constitute a stock-exchange day, the two parties, "bulls" and "bears," wage a financial war. Each has its general, recognized leader as well as a dozen lesser ones, who organize pools and cliques, manipulate news, issue statements that are pure fiction, pay for items in the press that are fairy tales, gather their moneyed forces into aggregation for practical robbery of others, and bend all energies of brain, experience, and knowledge of conditions to one focal point, and that either to depress or enhance the value of securities. Each main army has its general method, controls its banks, pays enormous tolls to telegraph companies, fixes rates of interest at will, pays for and colors the daily utterances of its own newspapers, and buys truth and falsehood with equal readiness at so much per line. This describes the two parties generally; yet the men who constitute them are daily changing, and out of a thousand who may be among the bears to-day, half might be found with the bulls a week hence. Some may be on both sides at once, pushing one stock up and another down, a kaleidoscopic jumble of half insane human beings, whose statements as to value, conditions, and their own intentions bear no relation to the truth and are not expected to do so. It is a contest of cunning, a war of falsehood, a battle of deception. And those who fall by the wayside excite no pity, receive no consideration, and if they rise not by their own exertion, they are kicked out of the way. Professionally speaking, lawyers have been called legal liars, but compared to stock manipulators they are walking examples of truth and veracity. A lawyer may lie and can if necessary, but a stock operator lies all the time; from sheer force of habit. A lawyer might lie to judge, jury, or his own client, but there is some chance that he may tell the truth to a brother lawyer; while stock brokers will lie to each other on all occasions, and if necessary swear to it. And this is business in Wall Street!