Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/215

 trickled out unwillingly, as it were, through the massive oaken doors that front his palace. If Jay Gould's secret could have been longer kept it doubtless would have been, but Death sounds a tocsin which even a master of silence cannot muffle.

In all the spacious palace where this rich man died there was no room more plain and simple than his own. There was nothing garish, nothing to attract or astonish the eye, none of the rare and beautiful bric-a-brac or articles of toilet which have made Miss Helen's boudoir famous in the social world. The furniture was massive, but simple; the colors were subdued. Through the open door the railroad manipulator could see his beloved study—a study, indeed, where he has pored with such relentless zeal by day and night over law books and other weighty tomes, planning the campaigns which made him a Napoleon in his line, and which were so disastrous to those who opposed him. They were fading now from his sight. He should plan no more.

He indicated with a whisper and a gesture that he was glad his children were all there. And then he showed a wish to change his position, and as the attendant turned him over, the spark of his life went out as if some breath had blown it.

With the slightest echo of a rattle in his throat Jay Gould was dead.

As soon as all was over George and Edwin took charge of matters and began to prepare for the funeral. Messages were sent to Mrs. Palm, of Camden, N. J., and Mrs. Harris, of Philadelphia, Mr.