the finances, had shot himself as the culmination of a series of fraudulent hypothecations of securities and misrepresentations to which it was claimed that Williams was not a party. The firm had been hopelessly insolvent for months, and had been forced to the wall at last by a futile effort on the part of Van Horne to redeem the situation by a final speculation on a large scale. It had failed owing to the continuation of the state of dry rot in the stock market, and utter ruin followed. The regret which Lyons entertained as he read aloud the tragic story was overshadowed in his mind by his own thankfulness that he had redeemed the bonds and settled his account with them before the crash came. He was so absorbed by his own emotions that he failed to note the triumphant tone of his wife's ejaculation of amazement. "Failed! Williams & Van Horne failed! Oh, how did it happen? I always felt sure that they would fail sooner or later." Selma sat with tightly folded hands listening to the exciting narrative, which Lyons read for her edification with the urbanely mournful emphasis of one who has had a narrow escape. He stopped in the course of it to relieve any solicitude which she might be feeling in regard to his dealings with the firm, by the assertion that he had only two months previous closed out his account owing to the conviction that prudent investors were getting under cover. This assurance gave the episode a still more providential aspect in Selma's eyes. In the first flush of her gratitude that Flossy had been superbly rebuked for her frivolous existence, she had forgotten that they were her husband's brokers. Moreover the lack of perturbation in his manner was not calculated to inspire alarm. But the news that Lyons had been shrewd enough to escape at the twelfth hour without a dollar's loss heightened the justice of the situation. She listened with throbbing pulses to the particulars. She could scarcely credit her senses that her irrepressible and light-hearted enemy had been confounded at last--confronted with bankruptcy and probable disgrace. She interrupted the reading to express her scepticism regarding the claim that Williams had no knowledge of the frauds. "How could he be ignorant? He must have known. He must have bribed the reporters to put that in so as to arouse the sympathy of some of their fashionable friends. Van Horne is dead, and the lips of the dead are sealed." Selma spoke with the confidence born of bitterness. She was pleased with her acumen in discerning the true inwardness of the case. Her husband nodded with mournful acquiescence. "It would seem," he said, "as if he must have had an inkling, at least, of what was going on." "Of course he had. Gregory Williams, with all his faults, was a wide-awake man. I always said that."