She had gone to the Continent to rest, after working for months on a novel which she had just published.

His wife, entirely without experience in business matters and somewhat of an invalid, was helpless to advise him.

But to his old and tried friend, ex-Judge Stott, Judge Rossmore explained the facts as they were.

Stott shook his head.

"It's a conspiracy!" he cried.
"And John B.Ryder is behind it." Rossmore refused to believe that any man could so deliberately try to encompass another's destruction, but when more newspaper stories came out he began to realize that Stott was right and that his enemies had indeed dealt him a deadly blow.