Among  those  who  fled  at  the  first  alarm  was  Jacob
Mendall.  It  may  be  as  well  to  state  here  that  he
never  returned,  but  died  within  a  few  years  in  a
European  city.  Walter  was  accepted  as  a  govern-
ment witness,  and  after  a  week  in  jail  was  released  on
bail.  The  house  on  Madison  avenue  was  attached  by
the  sheriff  as  Mendall's  property,  and  he  had  to  vacate
it.  With  his  occupation  gone  and  not  even  a  roof
over  his  head,  Walter's  decline  was  rapid.  But  for
occasional  aid  received  from  the  District  Attorney,
who  relied  somewhat  upon  his  evidence  in  the  forth-
coming trials,  this  youth,  so  recently  revelling  in  lux-
ury, might  have  had  to  go  to  the  police  station  for  a
bed  and  breakfast.  He  would  have  applied  even  to
his  sister  in  his  extremity,  for  his  pride  vanished  in
the  face  of  cold  and  hunger,  but  he  had  no  means  of
obtaining  her  address.  All  his  other  friends,  as  is
usual  in  such  cases,  gave  him  the  go-by  as  soon  as  his
cash  was  exhausted.  Some  of  them  would  not  have
minded  his  disgrace,  but  none  could  forgive  his  im-


336  THOU  SHALT  NOT.
pecuniosity.  One  day  he  sank  so  low  as  to  write  a
note  to  Gabrielle  Delaporte,  asking  her  for  a  "  loan  "
of  fifty  dollars.  She  sent  him  the  money,  with  a  few
lines  to  the  effect  that  he  must  never  apply  again,
and  that  he  must  not  dream,  on  any  account,  of  com-
ing to  her  house.  These  chilling  words  from  the
beauty  on  whom  he  had  lavished  thousands  quite
crushed  him,  and  he  did  not  venture  to  disregard  her
injunctions.
CHAPTER  XXXII.
GABRIELLE  heard  the  crash  which  crushed  her  late
friends  to  the  earth  with  the  utmost  indifference.
