As I glanced at it, the woman herself rose before my eyes, and she sat across the desk from me, looking into my face. "Yes, I need you," I found myself muttering; "not any letter, but _you_, with your will and your courage, now, if ever. For this is the last ditch, sure enough!" The letter shook in my hand and beat against the desk. It was a silly thing to leave my bed and come chasing down here at five in the morning to get hold of a romantic woman's letter! My nerves were wrong. Something in me revolted from going any further with this weakness, and I still hesitated to tear open the envelope. The other battles of my life I had won unaided. At the bottom of our hearts there is a feeling which we do not understand, a respect for the unknown. Terror, fear,--call it what you will,--sometime in life every one is made to feel it. All my life has been given to practical facts, yet I know that at the end of all things there are no facts. In the silence and gray light of that morning I felt the strong presence of my friend, holding out to me a hand.... I tore open the letter. Inside was another little envelope, which contained a visiting-card. On it was written: "Mr. J. Carboner, 230 West Lake Street," and beneath, in fine script, this one sentence: "_Mr. Carboner is a good adviser--see him!_" [Illustration: "_For this is the last ditch, sure enough!_"] This was fit pay for my folly. Of all the sentimental nonsense, an adviser! What was wanted was better than a million dollars of ready cash--within three hours. It was now half-past six o'clock, and I had left until half-past nine to find an ordinary, practical way out of my present difficulties. Then the banks would be open; the great wheel of business would begin to revolve, with its sure, merciless motion. Nevertheless, in spite of my scepticism, my eyes wandered to a map of the city that hung on the wall, and I made out the location of the address given on the card. It was a bare half-mile across the roofs from where I sat, in a quarter of the city lying along the river, given up to brick warehouses, factories, and freight yards. Small likelihood that a man with a million to spare in his pocket was to be found over there! In this mood of depression and disgust I left my office, to get shaved. "Street floor, sir," the elevator boy called out to wake me from my preoccupation. As I stood on the curb in the same will-less daze, a cab came prowling down the street, crossed to my side, and the disreputable-looking driver touched his dirty hat with his whip:-- "Cab, sir?" "Two-thirty West Lake," I said to him mechanically, and plunged into his carriage.