After they had filed out he remarked to Jordon: "They are stampeded. They will come to your terms. I leave them in your hands." He touched the button on his desk and his secretary appeared. "If Senator Speed has come," he said, "ask him to step in." * * * * * When David and Rogers were home again, and the Mayor and his profanity had gone, there was a long silence during which both sat motionless. David searched his mind for some word of hope for Rogers, who was a collapsed bundle in a Morris chair, gazing through the window into the dusky air-shaft. At length he bent before Rogers and took his hand. "We'll go to some new place together, and start all over again," he said. Rogers turned his face--the only part of him that the deepening twilight had not blotted out. It seemed a bodyless face--the mask of hopelessness. "It's no use--I'm all in," he whispered. "Even if I had the courage to make another fight, there's no strength." He was silent for several moments. Then a low moan broke from him. "Ten years!" he whispered. "And this is the end!" BOOK IV THE SOUL OF WOMAN CHAPTER I HELEN CHAMBERS GETS A NEW VIEW OF HER FATHER The morning light that sunk down the deep air-shaft and directed its dimmed gaze through the window, saw Rogers lying dressed on the couch and David sitting with sunken head at the window, a sleepless night on both their faces. There had been little talk during the crawling hours, save when the Mayor had dropped in near midnight and set walls and furniture trembling with his deep chest-notes of profanity. Even Tom, awed by the overwhelming disaster, moved noiselessly about and spoke only a few whispered monosyllables. The blow was too heavy to be talked of--too heavy for them to think of what should next be done. Once, however, David, whose personal loss was almost forgotten in his sympathy for Rogers, had spoken of the future. "There is no future," Rogers had said. "In a few days the owners of my buildings will hear about me. They will take the agency from me. I have a few hundred dollars. That will soon go. And then--?" The dinginess in the light began to settle like the sediment of a clearing liquid, and the sense that the sun must be breakfast-high worked slowly to the seat of David's will. He rose, quietly set a few things in order, Rogers's eyes following him about, then put on his hat with the purpose of going to the Pan-American for his breakfast and to bring Rogers's. As he started for the door Rogers reached forth his hand. "I'm glad you found out about me, Aldrich," he said. "I can never tell you how much you've meant to me during the last eight months, and how much you mean to me now." David grasped the hand and looked down into the despairing eyes. "I'm glad," he said, simply. After a moment Rogers's weak grip relaxed and he turned away his face with a sigh. David went softly out.