Mary wondered for an agonized instant whether the cord of his sanity had snapped under the day’s terrific ordeal, and she stood there still leaning limp and pallid and wide-eyed against the wall, holding before her the tape that had told her the story—­and not realizing that she held it.  Then the man awoke from his sleep-walker’s vacancy and realized her presence.  At the sight of her despairing eyes and inert figure resting for support against the mahogany panels, his expression altered.  His eyes woke to life and, again moistening his lips, he forced the ghost of a smile which at first succeeded only in being ghastly.

“So you know?” he questioned.

Mary Burton did not reply in words.  She could not, but she nodded her head and something between a groan and a sob came from her parted lips.  Then her voice returned and she murmured in heart-broken self-accusation:  “It was because of me.”

He stood shaking himself as a dog shakes off water.  His drooped shoulders came back with an abrupt snap and his head threw itself up and his chest out.  With a swift stride he had reached her and folded her into his embrace.  For once the regal confidence had left her and the courage was dead in her heart.  She lay in his arms a dead weight, which, but for his supporting strength, would have crumbled to a limp mass on the floor.  But as he held her, fresh bravery flooded his arteries and his voice came clear and untainted of weakness: 

“We still have each other,” he told her passionately.  “You once asked me whether, if you were penniless, I should still want you.  Today I am penniless and owe millions—­do you still want me?”

Her arms clung to him more closely and the eyes that gazed into his revealed, as they had on that first night, all that was in her soul.  Once more she answered him with a question:  “Look at me—­do I want you?”

He swept her from her feet and carried her to a chair, where he put her gently down, then he knelt by her side with her hands clasped convulsively in his own.  For a moment it is doubtful whether he realized anything save her presence.  His voice was the voice of the man who had met her by the mountain road, of the man who had come to her in the darkness at Haverly Lodge and claimed her without preamble.

“The mountains still stand—­and there are cottages there where even a very poor man may find shelter.  I would rather have it, with you, than to own Manhattan Island without you.”

There was a knock at the door of the private office, and Edwardes, rising from his knees, went to receive the message.  He came back very gravely.

“I have to face an unpleasant interview, dearest,” he said.  “One of those bankers who were crushed as incidents to my ruin—­who was guilty only of standing in your brother’s path, is here.  I’m told that he is half-mad, and I must do what I can.”  He opened a door into a small conference-room.  “Will you wait for me—­there?”