find out that he has tricked them, they will hunt him down, and before long.” 

 Louise shivered. 

 “Oh, I hope,” she exclaimed, “that he gets away! He is a traitor, of course, but he is a traitor to a hateful cause, and, after all, I think it is less for the money than for my sake that he does it. That sounds very conceited, I suppose,” she added, with a faint smile. “Ah! well, you see, for five years so many have been trying to turn my head. No wonder if I begin to believe some of their stories. David, I must go. I must not keep Dr. Henschell waiting any longer.” 

 “To-morrow,” he said, “to-morrow early I shall come. I am afraid I shall miss your first appearance in England, Louise.” 

 The sound of a violin came floating out from the inner room. 

 “That is my signal,” she declared smiling. “Dr. Henschell was almost beside himself that I came away. I come, Doctor,” she called out. “David, good fortune!” she added, giving him her hands. “Now go, dear.” 

 

CHAPTER VIII THE HAND OF MISFORTUNE

 Between the two men, seated opposite each other in the large but somewhat barely furnished office, the radical differences, both in appearance and mannerisms, perhaps, also, in disposition, had never been more strongly evident. They were partners in business and face to face with ruin. Stephen Laverick, senior member of the firm, although an air of steadfast gloom had settled upon his clean-cut, powerful countenance, retained even in despair something of that dogged composure, temperamental and wholly British, which had served him well along the road to fortune. Arthur Morrison, the man who sat on the other side of the table, a Jew to his finger-tips notwithstanding his altered name, sat like a broken thing, with tears in his terrified eyes, disordered hair, and parchment-pale face. Words had flown from his lips in a continual stream. He floundered in his misery, sobbed about it like a child. The hand of misfortune had stripped him naked, and one man, at least, saw him as he really was. 

 “I can’t stand it, Laverick,—I couldn’t face them all. It’s too cruel—too horrible! Eighteen thousand pounds gone in one week, forty thousand in a month! Forty thousand pounds! Oh, my God!” 

 He writhed in agony. The man on the other side of the table said nothing. 

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