Tears stole silently down the unaccustomed furrows; the gateway of feeling was open, but the tremulous lips refused to speak.  Before he could recover his self-possession, Monroe was gone.  Mr. Lindsay tried to read the newspapers, but the print before his eyes conveyed no idea to his preoccupied brain.  Then his thoughts turned to his beautiful villa in Brookline, and he remembered how that morning his daughter stepped lightly into the brougham with him at the back piazza, rode down the winding path between the evergreen-hedges, and, after giving him a kiss, sprang out when they reached the gate.  He knew, that, when he returned in the evening, he should find her in her place under the great horse-chestnut, at the foot of the hill, ready to ride to the house.  How could he meet her with the news he would have to carry? how crush the spirits of his invalid wife?  Humiliating as the idea of failure was when considered in his relations with the mercantile world, the thought of home, with its changed feelings and circumstances, and the probable deprivation of habitual indulgences, was far more poignant.

It was not long before Monroe returned, but with a less buoyant air.  Mr. Lindsay’s spirits fell instantly.  “I see it all,” said he, “you can’t do anything.”

“Perhaps I may, yet.  The notes I spoke of, though due to me, are in the hands of Mr. Sandford, Secretary of the Vortex Insurance Company.  I have been there, and cannot see him.  His shutting himself up, I am afraid, bodes me no good.  However, I’ll go again an hour hence.”

“No harm in trying.  Did you indorse the notes to him?”

“No.  They were merely left with him for convenience’ sake, as he was my agent in loaning the money.”

“Then he can’t make way with them,—­honestly.”

Monroe seemed hurt by the implied suspicion, but did not reply, thinking it best, if possible, to change the subject of conversation.

Mr. Lindsay sat in silence, a silence that was broken only once or twice during the morning, and then by some friend or business acquaintance asking, in hurried or anxious tones, “Anything over to-day?” A mournful shake of the head was the only answer, and the merchant sunk into a deeper gloom.

Again Monroe went to see Mr. Sandford, but with no better success.  The third time he naturally spoke in a peremptory tone, and, giving his name and business, said, that he must and would see Mr. Sandford, or get the notes.  The weight of his employer’s trouble rested on him, and gave an unwonted force to his usually kind and modest temper.  The clerk, not daring to break his instructions, and seeing that it was not far from two o’clock, intimated, in a half-confidential tone, that he would do well to ask Mr. Tonsor, the broker, about them.  Nervous with apprehension, Monroe walked swiftly to Tonsor’s office.  At the door he met Fletcher coming out with exultation in every feature.  Within stood Bullion, his legs more astride than usual, his chin more confidently settled over his collar, and the head of his cane pressed against his mouth.  As Monroe entered, Tonsor ceased the conversation, and, looking up, said, blandly, “My young friend, can I do anything for you?” Bullion at the same time turned the eyes that might have been only glittering petrifactions, and pointed the long eyebrow at him inquiringly.