The December sun came up and gilded the roof of the extension in which the multi-millionaire lay gasping out the remnant of his life. It caught in the glass of the conservatory and sent baffling lights into the eyes of passers gazing curiously up at the windows which shrouded the drama of life and death within. Audacious, it trickled in between the shutters until a hand closed them tight, and it saw, what few have seen, the great magician of Wall street bent low by a power greater than his own. Just then, as if moved by some sympathetic force, all of the raised shades were lowered and the great house assumed a somber aspect. This was just after nine o’clock in the morning. A few moments later a messenger boy came out of the house bearing a telephone message from Dr. Munn to his wife, stating that Mr. Gould had died at a quarter past nine o’clock. And thus the news that a king was dead trickled out unwillingly, as it were, through the massive oaken doors that front his palace. If Jay Gould’s secret could have been longer kept it doubtless would have been, but Death sounds a tocsin which even a master of silence cannot muffle. In all the spacious palace where this rich man died there was no room more plain and simple than his own. There was nothing garish, nothing to attract or astonish the eye, none of the rare and beautiful bric-a-brac or articles of toilet which have made Miss Helen’s boudoir famous in the social world. The furniture was massive, but simple; the colors were subdued. Through the open door the railroad manipulator could see his beloved study--a study, indeed, where he has pored with such relentless zeal by day and night over law books and other weighty tomes, planning the campaigns which made him a Napoleon in his line, and which were so disastrous to those who opposed him. They were fading now from his sight. He should plan no more. He indicated with a whisper and a gesture that he was glad his children were all there. And then he showed a wish to change his position, and as the attendant turned him over, the spark of his life went out as if some breath had blown it. With the slightest echo of a rattle in his throat Jay Gould was dead. As soon as all was over George and Edwin took charge of matters and began to prepare for the funeral. Messages were sent to Mrs. Palm, of Camden, N. J., and Mrs. Harris, of Philadelphia, Mr. Gould’s sisters, and to other friends, apprising them of the death; and a telephone message summoned the undertaker and his assistants who had been waiting the word from their headquarters in Forty-fourth street. Vice-President Clark, of the Union Pacific road, who had been waiting for a week at the Windsor to confer with his chief, dropped over to the hotel and sent a number of messages.