Netherlands, the Savoy, the Metropolitan Club, the great Vanderbilt
mansion, were darkened. Only a few ice-dimmed lamps clustered around
the Plaza fountain, where the bronze goddess, with her basket of
ice, made a graceful and shadowy figure under the stars.

The young man was feeling very ill now. His fur overcoat had become
unbuttoned and the bitter wind that blew across the Park seemed to
benumb his body and fetter his limbs so that he could barely keep
his feet.

He had managed to cross Fifth Avenue, somehow; but now he stumbled
against the stone balustrade which surrounds the fountain, and he
rested there, striving to keep his feet.

Blindness, then deafness possessed him. Stupefied, instinct still
aided him automatically in his customary habit of fighting; he
strove to beat back the mounting waves of lethargy; half-conscious,
he still fought for consciousness.

After a while his hat fell off. He was on his knees now, huddled
under his overcoat, his left shoulder resting against the
balustrade. Twice one arm moved as though seeking something. It was
the mind's last protest against the betrayal of the body. Then the
body became still, although the soul still lingered within it.

But now it had become a question of minutes--not many minutes.
Fate had knocked him out; Destiny was counting him out--had nearly
finished counting. Then Chance stepped into the squared circle of
Life. And Kay McKay was in a very bad way indeed when a coupe,
speeding northward through the bitter night, suddenly veered