“A gentleman to see you, mademoiselle.”

“I can see no one,” Katrine answered, briefly, her face averted.

“He says his business is most important.”

“Who is it, Marcelle?” she asked.

“It is Nora’s son, mademoiselle, and he has been drinking; but if I were you, I’d see him.”

The significance of the girl’s tone changed Katrine’s former decision.

“Tell him to come in,” she said.

Barney came as far as the doorway and stood leaning against the frame of it, his eyes hot and angry, waving a newspaper wildly over his head.

“Of all the damned dirty businesses,” he cried, “this is the damnedest and dirtiest I ever got up against!  ’Combined attack,” he quoted, striking the printed words with his fist.  “Do you know the name of that combination?  Dermott McDermott, that’s its name.  There may be a few others mixed up in it—­Marix, for instance—­for looks only.  But it’s McDermott at the bottom; this same McDermott mother’s always tellin’ me to imitate.  Damned rascal!  He’s hated Mr. Ravenel and downed him because be thinks you love him.  Hit him when he’s down, too!”

He was too excited to sit down, but walked back and forth, talking loudly with excited gestures.

“Mr. Ravenel got back from Europe only three days ago, Tuesday, and in the evening he sent for me to come to the Savoy.  Miss Katrine, I’ve never seen so dreadful a change in any one.  He was like an old man.  The look of death was on him, and he said he’d sent for me to cheer him up with my talk.”

The boy was unable to continue for the sobs which shook him, and he covered his face with his hands for a space before he could proceed.

“He’d found bad news in Europe, he told me, and wanted me to cheer him up.  I stayed the night with him, and in the morning when I called him he did not answer, but just lay still and white, looking at me, unable to speak.  We got Dr. Johnston right away, and telegraphed Mr. Ravenel’s mother, who arrived the next day.  Yesterday morning that hound Marix, whose affairs are all mixed up with McDermott’s, sent this note to me.”

He extended a bit of yellow paper toward her, upon which was written: 

     “Sell Ravenel stocks within the next twenty-four hours, and hold
     for the bottom to drop out of them.”

“But I’ll get even with him, this Marix!” Barney shrieked, in his rage.  “The only reason he gives me tips is because I know something disgraceful of him!  I’ll publish him from one end of the country to the other!  I’ll send him to the penitentiary!  But I can’t reach McDermott!  Oh,” he cried, with clinched fists, “if I only could!”

“I can,” Katrine said, quietly; asking, after a minute’s doubting, “You’re sure it is Dermott McDermott who is at the foot of the trouble?”

“Who else has the money or the reasons to make such an attack?” he demanded of her as an answer.  “And Marix as good as told me McDermott had some big deal on against the Ravenel interests last month.”