“Well?” said Butler, turning on him when he opened the door, and not seeing Aileen.

“You’ll find her outside in my runabout,” observed Cowperwood.  “You may use that if you choose.  I will send my man for it.”

“No, thank you; we’ll walk,” said Butler.

Cowperwood called his servant to take charge of the vehicle, and Butler stalked solemnly out.

He had to admit to himself that the influence of Cowperwood over his daughter was deadly, and probably permanent.  The best he could do would be to keep her within the precincts of the home, where she might still, possibly, be brought to her senses.  He held a very guarded conversation with her on his way home, for fear that she would take additional offense.  Argument was out of the question.

“Ye might have talked with me once more, Aileen,” he said, “before ye left.  Yer mother would be in a terrible state if she knew ye were gone.  She doesn’t know yet.  Ye’ll have to say ye stayed somewhere to dinner.”

“I was at the Calligans,” replied Aileen.  “That’s easy enough.  Mama won’t think anything about it.”

“It’s a sore heart I have, Aileen.  I hope ye’ll think over your ways and do better.  I’ll not say anythin’ more now.”

Aileen returned to her room, decidedly triumphant in her mood for the moment, and things went on apparently in the Butler household as before.  But those who imagine that this defeat permanently altered the attitude of Butler toward Cowperwood are mistaken.

In the meanwhile between the day of his temporary release and the hearing of his appeal which was two months off, Cowperwood was going on doing his best to repair his shattered forces.  He took up his work where he left off; but the possibility of reorganizing his business was distinctly modified since his conviction.  Because of his action in trying to protect his largest creditors at the time of his failure, he fancied that once he was free again, if ever he got free, his credit, other things being equal, would be good with those who could help him most—­say, Cooke & Co., Clark & Co., Drexel & Co., and the Girard National Bank—­providing his personal reputation had not been too badly injured by his sentence.  Fortunately for his own hopefulness of mind, he failed fully to realize what a depressing effect a legal decision of this character, sound or otherwise, had on the minds of even his most enthusiastic supporters.

His best friends in the financial world were by now convinced that his was a sinking ship.  A student of finance once observed that nothing is so sensitive as money, and the financial mind partakes largely of the quality of the thing in which it deals.  There was no use trying to do much for a man who might be going to prison for a term of years.  Something might be done for him possibly in connection with the governor, providing he lost his case before the Supreme Court and was actually sentenced to prison; but that