hopes and fears with a frankness in strange contrast to their former
manner. But there was one point on which Bob showed he was holding back. I
finally put it to him bluntly: "Bob, are you working out anything that
looks like real relief for Miss Sands and her father?"

"I don't know how to answer you, Jim. I can only say I have some ideas,
radical ones perhaps, but--well, I am thinking along certain lines."

I saw he was not yet willing to take us into his confidence. We parted,
Bob going along in the cab with Miss Sands.

Two days afterward she sent for us both as soon as we got to the office.

"I have this telegram from father--it makes me uneasy: 'Mailed to-day
important letter. Answer as soon as you receive.'"

The following afternoon the letter came. It showed Judge Sands in a very
nervous, uneasy state. He said he had been living a life of daily terror,
as some of his friends, for whose estates he was trustee, had been
receiving anonymous letters, advising them to look into the judge's trust
affairs; that the Reinhart crowd had been using renewed pressure to make
him let go all his Seaboard stock, which they wanted to secure at the low
prices to which they had depressed it, in order that they might reorganise
and carry out the scheme they had been so long planning. Judge Sands went
on to say that the day he was compelled to sell his Seaboard stock he
would have to make public an announcement of his condition, as there
could be no sale without the court's consent. His closing was:

"My dear daughter, no one knows better than I the almost hopelessness
of expecting any relief from your operations. But so hopeless have I