"With his English self-control and horror of a scene, he followed his
wife to the door"

"'Zara!' he said distractedly ...'Can I not help you?'"





THE REASON WHY



CHAPTER I


People often wondered what nation the great financier, Francis Markrute,
originally sprang from. He was now a naturalized Englishman and he
looked English enough. He was slight and fair, and had an immaculately
groomed appearance generally--which even the best of valets cannot
always produce. He wore his clothes with that quiet, unconscious air
which is particularly English. He had no perceptible accent--only a
deliberate way of speaking. But Markrute!--such a name might have come
from anywhere. No one knew anything about him, except that he was
fabulously rich and had descended upon London some ten years previously
from Paris, or Berlin, or Vienna, and had immediately become a power in
the city, and within a year or so, had grown to be omnipotent in certain
circles.