The Desired Woman

The Desired Woman, by Will N.
Harben

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Title: The Desired Woman
Author: Will N. Harben
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THE DESIRED WOMAN
By WILL N. HARBEN
Author of "Dixie Hart," "Pole Baker," "The Redemption of Kenneth
Galt," Etc.
WITH FRONTISPIECE

TO
VELLA AND BILLY


CHAPTER I
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PART I
CHAPTER I

Inside the bank that June morning the clerks and accountants on their
high stools were bent over their ponderous ledgers, although it was
several minutes before the opening hour. The gray-stone building was
in Atlanta's most central part on a narrow street paved with asphalt
which sloped down from one of the main thoroughfares to the section
occupied by the old passenger depot, the railway warehouses, and
hotels of various grades. Considerable noise, despite the closed
windows and doors, came in from the outside. Locomotive bells slowly
swung and clanged; steam was escaping; cabs, drays, and trucks
rumbled and creaked along; there was a whir of a street-sweeping
machine turning a corner and the shrill cries of newsboys selling the
morning papers.
Jarvis Saunders, member of the firm of Mostyn, Saunders & Co.,
bankers and brokers, came in; and, hanging his straw hat up, he seated
himself at his desk, which the negro porter had put in order.
"I say, Wright"--he addressed the bald, stocky, middle-aged man who,
at the paying-teller's window, was sponging his fat fingers and counting
and labeling packages of currency--"what is this about Mostyn feeling
badly?"
"So that's got out already?" Wright replied in surprise, as he
approached and leaned on the rolling top of the desk. "He cautioned us
all not to mention it. You know what a queer, sensitive sort of man he
is where his health or business is concerned."
"Oh, it is not public," Saunders replied. "I happened to meet Dr. Loyd
on the corner. He had just started to explain more fully when a patient
stopped to speak to him, and so I didn't wait, as he said Mostyn was
here."

"Yes, he's in his office now." Wright nodded toward the frosted glass
door in the rear. "He was lying on the lounge when I left him just now.
It is really nothing serious. The doctor says it is only due to loss of
sleep and excessive mental strain, and that a few weeks' rest in some
quiet place will straighten him out."
"Well, I'm glad it is not serious," Saunders said. "I have seen him break
down before. He is too intense, too strenuous; whatever he does he
does with every nerve in his body drawn as taut as a fiddle- string."
"It is his outside operations, his private deals," the teller went on, in a
more confidential tone. "Why, it makes me nervous even to watch him.
He's been keyed high for the last week. You know, I'm an early riser,
and I come down before any one else to get my work up. I found him
here this morning at half past seven. He was as nervous as a man about
to be hanged. He couldn't sit or stand still a minute. He was waiting for
a telegram from Augusta concerning Warner & Co. I remember how
you advised him against that deal. Well, I guess if it had gone against
him it would have ruined him."
The banker nodded. "Yes, that was foolhardy, and he seemed to me to
be going into it blindfolded. He realized the danger afterward. He
admitted it to me last night at the club. He said that he was sorry he had