Immediately then she went back to first principles. "What is going to happen to him? Will they put him in jail?" Wilkinson's confidential man smiled. "I've often wondered," he mused, "whether it would be good or bad for us if they jailed him. A man in prison is a man very much out of the way. But in this case he would be too much out of the way. Put him in jail and you discourage his defence--you encourage the public, his depositors. They'll do what we should do: infest the wreck and gobble up what is ours by right. No, so long as Peter Wilkinson lives, we must fight his battle for him--pull him through, keep him standing up, only to be able to knock him down later. That, so long as he lives, must be our policy. So long as he lives," he repeated. "Suppose," she began, and then hazarded: "In case of his death, what would my rights be?" "In case he dies----" suddenly he stopped. That was a possibility he had not foreseen. He had seen much strife ahead: first, a tremendous fight for Wilkinson, then a tremendous campaign against him. But what if the man should break down, die? There was food for thought, reasoned Flomerfelt. "He might die," he resumed, holding her glance as he went on, "for everything must be considered. Disgrace wouldn't kill him, but his liver, or,----" he jerked his thumb over his shoulder,--"there might be violence--conspiracies. There have been rumours that the trust company depositors are wild, especially the poor ones--socialists, we'll say. So, he might die--be killed. Who knows?" Flomerfelt rose and looked down upon her long and earnestly. "But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Mrs. Peter V. Good-night, my dear lady!" And bowing unusually low to her, he left the room. VI It was three o'clock in the morning when Eliot Beekman reached his club in Forty-fourth Street. "There's a telegram for you, Mr. Beekman," called out a sleepy employé, from the office. "It was left here by your clerk to-night." In his room Beekman switched on the light and read: ELIOT BEEKMAN, ESQ., 32 Nassau St., N. Y. Meet us at Hotel Iroquois, Buffalo, to-morrow six P. M. Important letter follows. Wire answer. Do not fail. BANK LE BOEUF, _J. K. W., Cashier_. "The Bank Le Boeuf of Buffalo! Sounds good; I hope it is good," mused Beekman. "If so, another big client added to my growing list." Without hesitation he wrote an answering telegram, stating that he would be at the Hotel Iroquois at 6 P. M. the following night, took it downstairs, and left it in the office with instructions to send it as soon as possible. And it was not until fifteen minutes later, in the midst of his speculations as to the nature of this business sent to him by the Bank Le Boeuf, that the thought of Leslie's yachting-party came to him. "Confound it!" he muttered to himself. "I clean forgot all about it. What am I going to do?"