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 George had suspected of working insidiously to buy control of Judson-Morris had broken the veteran banker down.

Still, there was a chance that they had not actually got his stock yet—a chance that Templeton was only getting in position to trade if he decided to do so. If George were there and on the ground, he would rally his every source and fight as he had never fought before.

But suddenly he was listless and lackadaisical. What was the use of fighting for that when the thing he most wanted in the world—? He drew from his wallet a letter broken at the creases and almost worn out with handling. He pondered this letter. After all, did it alter matters? Its author had in no wise committed herself. She had then and since studiously concealed herself from him. There was no hope in the letter. There was, rather, a clear intimation that she was about to find her Eden without him.

With whom? He speculated bitterly. For Eden was not a lonely place. God had seen that it was not good to be alone in Eden. There were two in Eden always.

The man sat with his head in his hands, weighing, weighing. He was a man of action. This fight that might be made for the Templeton stock—it was a concrete thing to do. Judson-Morris was his creation. It was all that was left to him of what he had aimed his life at.