Trent's directors ceased to worry him and wired invitations to luncheon at the West End.
The bulls were the sport of everybody.

When closing-time came Trent had made 100,000 pounds, and was looked upon everywhere as one of the rocks of finance.
Only then he began to realise what the strain had been to him.

His hard, impassive look had never altered, he had been seen everywhere in his accustomed City haunts, his hat a little better brushed than usual, his clothes a little more carefully put on, his buttonhole more obvious and his laugh readier.

No one guessed the agony through which he had passed, no one knew that he had spent the night at a little inn twelve miles away, to which he had walked after nine o'clock at night.

He had not a single confidant, even his cashier had no idea whence came the large sums of money which he had paid away right and left.