It seemed to me in those days he was more of a persecutor than prosecutor." "Let's forget it." Houston laughed uneasily.
"Now, to go back to the bankers--" "There isn't much for us to do but to try them, one after another.

I guess we might as well start now as any time." Late that afternoon they were again in the office, the features of Mason wrinkled with thought, those of Barry Houston plainly discouraged.

They had failed.

The refusals had been courteous, fraught with many apologies for a tight market, and effusive regrets that it would be impossible to loan money on such a gilt-edged proposition as the contract seemed to hold forth, but-- There had always been that one word, that stumbling-block against which they had run time after time, shielded and padded by courtesy, but present nevertheless.

Nor were Houston and Mason unaware of the real fact which lay behind it all; that the bankers did not care to trust their money in the hands of a man who had been accused of murder and who had escaped the penalty of such a charge by a margin, which to Boston, at least, had seemed exceedingly slight.