Stoughton walked slowly home. He was thinking of Manson, the pessimist, who had been right. And such is the interlinking chain of life. Manson, at this moment, was sitting in his office, while his mind harked aimlessly back to the first time he had met the men from Philadelphia. He stared at a telegram that trembled between his thick fingers. His broad face was gray and ghastly. He had been here motionless for some time, when a gentle knock sounded at the door and his wife came timidly in. One glance at his face, and her arms were round his neck. "What is it, Peter?" she quavered. He did not look up but held the message so that she might read it. Sold you out to-day on stop loss order at thirty-two margin being exhausted. Farthing. She read it wonderingly. "What does it mean; who is Farthing?" "My Toronto broker--or at least he was," said Manson heavily. "But I don't understand, dear." "Ho, I didn't suppose you would; it means I lose my hundred thousand, that's all." "Had you a hundred thousand?" she whispered. "Very, very nearly, and now I haven't anything,--that is, I didn't make a cent." She drew a long breath. "Peter, tell me just how we stand." "Exactly where we did the day a man named Clark came to St. Marys," he said dully, "with not a cent more." There followed a little silence, and the tears began to roll down her cheeks. He put his arm round her, and perceived, with astonishment, that they were tears of happiness. "Peter dear," she said very softly, "you don't know how glad I am that it's all over." "You mean the hundred thousand!" He stared at her blankly. "Yes, just that. I know you won't understand, but things have never been the same for me since you began to try and make it. You were different--everything was different." "But if I had made it you would have been glad." "Perhaps--I don't know. I'm rather afraid of a hundred thousand dollars," she began to smile a little through her tears, "but now I feel ten years younger. Is that what 'stop loss' means--you don't actually lose anything?" "Nothing more than I have sent him in this case." "And you didn't send him my money--not that it's much." "Good God, Mary, no!" "Peter," she began gently, "you weren't happy all the time--I could tell that. You were trying to do something you weren't made for--I could see that too. You are very strong--but it isn't that kind of strength. People like us can't do that kind of thing--we feel too much. We haven't got much, but it represents a lot and our lives are in it, and this hundred thousand dollars wouldn't have been that kind of money, would it?" "No, I suppose not." Manson felt the tumult in his breast subsiding.