"The judgment of this court is that sentence in your case be suspended so long as you obey the law." A murmur of applause rippled the crowd, and a muttered oath fell from Bivens's livid lips. "And I may say to you, Henry Woodman, that my faith is profound that you will never appear in this court again. And if you ever need the help of a friend you'll find one if you come to me. You are a free man." Stuart hurried the doctor out of the crowd. He had important work yet to do. He determined that no story of the scene should ever be printed in a New York paper. He would save Harriet that, too. As the court adjourned Bivens cursed his lawyers in a paroxysm of helpless rage. "Why didn't you appeal?" he stormed. "There is no appeal. The case is ended." "Ended!" The financier gasped. "Ended." Bivens suddenly threw his hand to his forehead, staggered and sank to the floor. A doctor who was near rushed to his side and lifted his head into his wife's arms. "What is it? Has he fainted, doctor?" she whispered, glancing toward the door through which Stuart had just passed. "He has had a stroke of paralysis, Madam, I fear," was the serious answer. Book 3--The Flower CHAPTER I THE DEVIL SMILES Stuart's appeal to the New York papers in behalf of Harriet was successful. For a week he bought every morning and evening edition and read them eagerly. Not a line appeared to darken the life of his little pal. Bivens's illness shook the financial world. The men who had professed his friendship most loudly to his face now sharpened their knives for his wounded body. Every stock with which his name was linked was the target of the most savage attacks. The tumbling of values in his securities carried down the whole market from five to six points in a single day. The great palace that had a few nights before blazed with lights and echoed with music, laughter, song and dance and clinking glasses, stood dark and silent behind its bristling iron fence. Of all the fawning crowd that had thronged its portals to drink the wine and toast the greatness of its master, not one was his friend to-day. Each sycophant of yesterday was now a wolf prowling in the shadows, awaiting the chance to tear his wounded body. Within the darkened palace the doctors were supreme. In his great library they held consultation after consultation and secretly smiled when they thought of the figures they would write on his bills. They disagreed in details, but all agreed on the main conclusion--that the only hope was that he should quit work and play for several years. When they made this solemn announcement to Bivens, he smiled for the first time. It was too good a joke. How could he play? He knew but one game, the big game of the man-hunt! He told his doctors politely but firmly that they might go to hell, he would go to Europe and see if there were doctors over there who knew anything.