"Madam! Madam!" I cried to her. "Do not! Do not! What you have done here is worth a hundred millions of dollars, a hundred thousand of lives, perhaps. Yes, that is true. It means most of Oregon, with honor, and without war. That is true, and it is much. But the price paid--it is more than all this continent is worth, if it cost so much as that Nor shall it!" Black, with a million pin-points of red, the world swam around me. Millions of dead souls or souls unborn seemed to gaze at me and my unhesitating rage. I caught up the scroll which bore England's signature, and with one clutch cast it in two pieces on the floor. As it lay, we gazed at it in silence. Slowly, I saw a great, soft radiance come upon her face. The red pin-points cleared away from my own vision. CHAPTER XXXIII THE STORY OF HELENA VON RITZ There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which beams and blazes in the dark hours of adversity.--_Washington Irving_. "But Madam; but Madam--" I tried to begin. At last, after moments which seemed to me ages long, I broke out: "But once, at least, you promised to tell me who and what you are. Will you do that now?" "Yes! yes!" she said. "Now I shall finish the clearing of my soul. You, after all, shall be my confessor." We heard again a faltering footfall in the hallway. I raised an eyebrow in query. "It is my father. Yes, but let him come. He also must hear. He is indeed the author of my story, such as it is. "Father," she added, "come, sit you here. I have something to say to Mr. Trist." She seated herself now on one of the low couches, her hands clasped across its arm, her eyes looking far away out of the little window, beyond which could be seen the hills across the wide Potomac. "We are foreigners," she went on, "as you can tell. I speak your language better than my father does, because I was younger when I learned. It is quite true he is my father. He is an Austrian nobleman, of one of the old families. He was educated in Germany, and of late has lived there." "I could have told most of that of you both," I said. She bowed and resumed: "My father was always a student. As a young man in the university, he was devoted to certain theories of his own. _N'est-ce pas vrai, mon drôle?_" she asked, turning to put her arm on her father's shoulder as he dropped weakly on the couch beside her. He nodded. "Yes, I wass student," he said. "I wass not content with the ways of my people." "So, my father, you will see," said she, smiling at him, "being much determined on anything which he attempted, decided, with five others, to make a certain experiment. It was the strangest experiment, I presume, ever made in the interest of what is called science. It was wholly the most curious and the most cruel thing ever done." She hesitated now. All I could do was to look from one to the other, wonderingly. "This dear old dreamer, my father, then, and five others--"