“Yes, open the door, and bring him out and make him tell us what he has done with our money, or we’ll hang him up on a tree,” one brutal fellow, who had only twenty dollars in the bank, said. “Easy enough to tell. Spent it in fine carriages, and horses, and diamonds, and pianos, and party gowns,” some one replied. “And hundred-dollar bicycles!” was added, with a glance at Louie, who was leaning on her wheel, sick at heart as she heard what was said, and thought how soon the loss of money would transform seeming friends into cruel foes. She had beckoned the cashier to her, and asked for a key. On being told that her father had both, she said: “I am sure he is here. He is not at home. We must get to him somehow.” She did not think of suicide, or that he was asleep. He was there, and afraid to come out, and she kept calling to him, “Father, let me in! It is Louie!” while there fell a kind of hush upon the people waiting for the answer, and pressing into the rear yard near the door. “Oh, keep back, please,” she said, as she heard her father trying to unlock the door. “Not much back. I’m going to have my silver dollars—seventy-five of ’em! He can’t have spent ’em all since Saturday night,” Nancy Sharp screamed, crowding up to the door, which was opened slowly, disclosing a face before which the crowd recoiled, it was so corpse-like and haggard, with a wild look in the bloodshot eyes, and a tremor about the lips which tried to smile as Mr. Grey said: “Good-morning, friends. Excuse me for not coming to you before. I must have overslept. Please let my daughter in a moment, and I’ll come out and explain, or Lawyer Blake will do it for me. Isn’t he here?” He had listened for the muttering of the storm, and when it came and increased in violence and he knew that a crowd was gathering in the street and would soon be clamoring for him, all his courage left him, and as the angry voices grew louder and there were kicks and thumps on the door, with cries for Grey to show himself, he cowered in a corner in abject fear of what awaited him beyond the heavy doors of his bank. Was there no friend outside? No one to stand between him and bodily harm? he was asking himself, when Louie’s voice came to him like a pæan of safety. No one would touch him with her at his side, and summoning all his courage he unlocked the door, greeted the people with his old-time courtesy, and asked for Lawyer Blake, who had just arrived, and with the cashier and Louie entered the room, the door of which was closed. “Good-morning, Blake,” Mr. Grey said, as if it were an ordinary meeting. “I suppose you have brought that paper. Get at it, please, while I have my wits. That noise outside drives me half crazy.” The paper was hastily produced, signed by Mr. Grey, and acknowledged before the cashier as notary and delivered to Mr. Blake. “There, that’s over,” Mr. Grey said, “and now please step into the front room. I must speak to Louie.”