"Well, it has come at last," said Raymer, passing a newly opened letter of the morning delivery over to Griswold. "The railroad people are taking their work away from us. I've been looking for that in every mail."

Griswold glanced at the letter and handed it back. The burden of the night of horrors was still lying heavily upon him, and his only comment was a questioning, "Well?"

"I've been thinking," was the reply. "I know Atherton, the new president of the Pineboro, pretty well; suppose I should run over to St. Paul and see him—make it a personal plea. We have enough of the hoboes now to run half-gangs; and perhaps, if I could make Atherton believe that we are going to win——"

"You couldn't," Griswold interrupted, shortly. "And, besides, you have told me yourself that Atherton is only a figurehead. Grierson's the man."

At this, Raymer let go again.

"What's the use?" he said dejectedly. "We're down, and everything we do merely prolongs the agony. Do you know that they tried to burn the plant last night?"

"No; I hadn't heard."

"They did. It was just before the thunder storm. They had everything fixed; a pile of kindlings laid in the corner back of the machine-shop annex and the whole thing saturated with kerosene."

"Well, why didn't they do it?" queried Griswold, half-heartedly. After the heavens have fallen, no mere terrestrial cataclysm can evoke a thrill.

"That's a mystery. Something happened; just what, the watchman who had the machine-shop beat couldn't tell. He says there was a flash of light bright enough to blind him, and then a scrap of some kind. When he got out of the shop and around to the place, there was no one there; nothing but the pile of kindlings."

Griswold took up the letter from the railway people and read it again. When he faced it down on Raymer's desk, he had closed with the conclusion which had been thrusting itself upon him since the early morning hour when he had picked his way among the sidewalk pools from Mereside to upper Shawnee Street.

"You can still save yourself, Edward," he said, still with the colorless note in his voice. And he added: "You know the way."

Raymer jerked his head out of his desk and swung around in the pivot-chair.

"See here, Griswold; the less said about that at this stage of the game, the better it will be for both of us!" he exploded. "I'm going to do as I said I should, but not until this fight is settled, one way or the other!"

Griswold did not retort in kind.

"The condition has already expired by limitation; the fight is as good as settled now," he said, placably. "We are only making a hopeless bluff. We can hold our forty or fifty tramp workmen just as long as we pay their board over in town, and don't ask them to report for work. But the day the shop whistle is blown, four out of every five will vanish. We both know that."

"Then there is nothing for it but a receivership," was Raymer's gloomy decision.

"Not without a miracle," Griswold admitted. "And the day of miracles is past."

Thus the idealist, out of a depth of wretchedness and self-exprobration hitherto unplumbed. But if he could have had even a momentary gift of telepathic vision he might have seen a miracle at that moment in the preliminary stage of its outworking.

The time was half-past nine; the place a grotto-like summer-house on the Mereside lawn. The miracle workers were two: Margery Grierson, radiant in the daintiest of morning house-gowns, and the man who had taken her retainer. Miss Grierson was curiously examining a photographic print: the pictured scene was a well-littered foundry yard with buildings forming an angle in the near background. Against the buildings a pile of shavings with kindlings showed quite clearly; and, stooping to ignite the pile, was a man who had evidently looked up at, or just before, the instant of camera-snapping. There was no mistaking the identity of the man. He had a round, pig-jowl face; his bristling mustaches stood out stiffly as if in sudden horror; and his hat was on the back of his head.

"It ain't very good," Broffin apologized. "The sun ain't high enough yet to make a clear print. But you said 'hurry,' and I reckon it will do."

Miss Grierson nodded. "You caught him in the very act, didn't you?" she said coolly. "What did he do?"

"Dropped things and jumped for the camera. But the flash had blinded him, and, besides, the camera had been moved. I let him have a foot to fall over, and he took it; after which I made a bluff at tryin' to hold him. Lordy gracious! new ropes wouldn't 'a' held him, then. I'll bet he's runnin' yet—what?"

"What did he hope to accomplish by setting fire to the works?"

"It was a frame-up to capture public sympathy. There's been a report circulating 'round that Raymer and Griswold was goin' to put some o' the ringleaders in jail, if they had to make a case against 'em. Clancy had it figured out that the fire'd be charged up to the owners, themselves."

Miss Grierson was still examining the picture. "You made two of these prints?" she asked.

"Yes; here's the other one—and the film."

"And you have the papers to make them effective?"

Broffin handed her a large envelope, unsealed. "You'll find 'em in there. That part of it was a cinch. Your governor ought to fire that man Murray. He was payin' Clancy in checks!"

Again Miss Grierson nodded.

"About the other matter?" she inquired. "Have you heard from your messenger?"

Broffin produced another envelope. It had been through the mails and bore the Duluth postmark.

"Affidavits was the best we could do there," he said. "My man worked it to go with MacFarland as the driver of the rig. They saw some mighty fine timber, but it happened to be on the wrong side of the St. Louis County line. He's a tolerably careful man, and he verified the landmarks."

"Affidavits will do," was the even-toned rejoinder. Then: "These papers are all in duplicate?"

"Everything in pairs—just as you ordered."

Miss Grierson took an embroidered chamois-skin money-book from her bosom and began to open it. Broffin raised his hand.

"Not any more," he objected. "You overpaid me that first evening in front of the Winnebago."

"You needn't hesitate," she urged. "It's my own money."

"I've had a-plenty."

"Enough so that we can call it square?"

"Yes, and more than enough."

"Then I can only thank you," she said, rising.

He knew that he was being dismissed, but the one chance in a thousand had yet to be tested.

"Just a minute, Miss Grierson," he begged. "I've done you right in this business, haven't I?"

"You have."

"I said I didn't want any more money, and I don't. But there's one other thing. Do you know what I'm here in this little jay town of yours for?"

"Yes; I have known it for a long time."

"I thought so. You knew it that day out at the De Soto, when you was tellin' Mr. Raymer a little story that was partly true and partly made up—what?"

"And when you were sitting behind the window curtains listening," she laughed. "Yes; I knew it then. What about it?"

"I've been wonderin' as I set here, if there was anything on the top side of God's green earth that'd persuade you to tell me how much o' that story was made up."

She was smiling deliciously when she said: "You are from the South, Mr. Broffin, and I didn't suppose a Southerner could be so unchivalrous as to suspect a lady of fibbing."

He shook his head. "I wish you'd tell me, Miss Grierson. I'm in pretty bad on this thing, and if——"

"I can tell you what to do, if that will help you."

"It might," he allowed.

"Go away and take some other commission. It's a cold trail, Mr. Broffin."

"But you won't say that Griswold isn't the man?"

"It is not for me to say. But Miss Farnham says he isn't, and Mr. Galbraith—you tried him, didn't you? What more do you want?"

"I want you to say he isn't; then I'll go away."

"You may put me in jail for contempt of court, if you like," she jested. "I refuse to testify. But I will tell you what you asked to know—if that will do any good. Every word of the story about Mr. Griswold—the story that you overheard, you know—was true; every single word of it. Do you suppose I should have dared to embroider it the least little bit—with you sitting right there at my back?"

"But you did think for a while that he might be the man—what?"

"Yes; I did think so—for a while."

Broffin got up and took a half-burned cigar from the ledge of the summer-house where he had carefully laid it at the beginning of the interview.

"You've got me down," he confessed, with a good-natured grin. "The man that plays a winnin' hand against you has got to get up before sun in the morning and hold all trumps, Miss Grierson—to say nothin' of being a mighty good bluffer, on the side." Then he switched suddenly. "How's Mr. Galbraith this morning?"

"He is very low, but he is conscious again. He has asked us to wire for the cashier of his bank to come up."

Broffin's eyes narrowed.

"The cashier is sick and can't come," he said.

"Well, some one in authority will come, I suppose."

Once more Broffin was thinking in terms of speed. Johnson, the paying teller, was next in rank to the cashier. If he should be the one to come to Wahaska....

"If you haven't anything else for me to do, I reckon I'll be going," he said, hastily, and forthwith made his escape. The telegraph office was a good ten minutes' walk from the lake front, and in the light of what Miss Grierson had just told him, the minutes were precious.

Something less than a half-hour after Broffin's hurried departure, Miss Grierson, coated and gauntleted, came down the Mereside carriage steps to take the reins of the big trap horse from Thorsen's hands. Contrary to her usual custom, she avoided Main Street and drove around past the college grounds to come by quieter thoroughfares to the industrial district beyond the railroad tracks.

For the first time in a riotous week, Pottery Flat was outwardly peaceful and its narrow streets were practically empty. Just what this portended, Margery did not know; but she found out when she turned into the street upon which the Raymer property fronted. Smoke was pouring from the tall central stack of the plant, and it had evidently provoked a sudden and wrathful gathering of the clans. The sidewalks were filled with angry workmen, and an excited argument was going forward at one of the barred gates between the locked-out men and a watchman inside of the yard.

The crowd let the trap pass without hindrance. However coldly Lake Boulevard and upper Shawnee Street might regard Miss Grierson, there was no enmity in the glances of the Flat dwellers—and for good reasons. In want, Miss Margery had poured largesse out of a liberal hand; and in sickness she had many times proved herself the veritable good angel that some people called her.

It was one of the strikers who offered to hold the big Englishman when the magnate's daughter sprang from the trap at the office door, and for the young fellow who offered she had a smile and a pleasant word. "I wouldn't trouble you to do that, Malcolm; but if you'll lead him along to that post and hitch him, I'll be much obliged," she said.

Though it was the first time she had been in the new offices, she seemed to know where to find what she sought; and when Raymer took his face out of his desk, she was standing on the threshold of the open door and smiling across at him.

"May I come in?" she asked; and when he fairly bubbled over in the effort to make her understand how welcome she was: "No; I mustn't sit down, because if I do, I shall stay too long—and this is a business call. Where is Mr. Griswold?"

"He went up-town a little while ago, and I wish to goodness he'd come back. You'd think, to look out of the windows, that we were due to have battle and murder and sudden death, wouldn't you? It's all because we have put a little fire under one battery of boilers. They tried to burn us out last night, and I'm going to carry steam enough for the fire pumps, if the heavens fall."

"You have been having a great deal of trouble, haven't you?" she said, sympathetically. "I'm sorry, and I've come to help you cure it."

Raymer shook his head despondently.

"I'm afraid it has gone past the curing point," he said.

"Oh, no, it hasn't. I have discovered the remedy and I've brought it with me." She took a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of her driving-coat and laid it on the desk before him. "I'm going to ask you to lock that up in your office safe for a little while, just as it is," she went on. "If there are no signs of improvement in the sick situation by three o'clock, you are to open it—you and Mr. Griswold—and read the contents. Then you will know exactly what to do, and how to go about it."

Her lip was trembling when she got through, and he saw it.

"What have you done, Margery?" he asked gently. "If it is something that hurts you——"

"Don't!" she pleaded; "you mu-mustn't break my nerve just at the time when I'm going to need every shred of it. Do as I say, and please, please don't ask any questions!"

She was going then, but he got before her and shut the door and put his back against it.

"I don't know what you have done, but I can guess," he said, lost now to everything save the intoxicating joy of the barrier-breakers. "You have a heart of gold, Margery, and I——"

"Please don't," she said, trying to stop him; but he would not listen.

"No; before that envelope is opened, before I can possibly know what it contains, I'm going to ask you one question in spite of your prohibition; and I'm going to ask it now because, afterward, I may not—you may not—that is, perhaps it won't be possible for me to ask, or for you to listen. I love you, Margery; I——"

She was looking up at him with the faintest shadow of a smile lurking in the depths of the alluring eyes. And her lips were no longer tremulous when she said: "Oh, no, you don't; I know just how you feel; you are excited, and—and impulsive, and there's a sort of getting-ready-to-be-grateful feeling roaming around in you, and all that. If I were as mean as some people think I am, I might take advantage of all this, mightn't I? But I sha'n't. Won't you open the door and let me go? It's very important."

"Heavens, Margery! don't make a joke of it!" he burst out. "Can't you see that I mean it? Girl, girl, I want you—I need you!"

This time she laughed outright. Then she grew suddenly grave.

"My dear friend, you don't know what you are saying. The gate that you are trying to break down opens upon nothing but misery and wretchedness. If I loved you as a woman ought to love her lover, for your sake and for my own I should still say no—a thousand times no! Now will you open the door and let me go?"

He turned and fumbled for the door-knob like a man in a daze.

"Don't you—don't you think you might learn to—to think of me in that way?—after a while?" he pleaded.

He had opened the door a little way, and she slipped past him. But in the corridor she turned and laughed at him again.

"I am going to cure you—you, personally, as well as the sick situation—Mr. Raymer," she said flippantly. Then, mimicking him as a spoiled child might have done: "I might possibly learn to—think of you—in that way—after a while. But I could never, never, never learn to love your mother and your sister."

And with that spiteful thrust she left him.