“If her dead mother could have seen you at your deviltry through that corporation--could have seen the starving wretches in your lumber camps--the blighted children toiling in your mines, the blood and filth on your dividend dollars, every one of them!” “He lies, Eleanor!” cried her father. “He is a half-crazed crank----” “He is my husband, father,” interrupted Eleanor. And very proud she looked as she said it. “You will do nothing to help me!” cried her father, in a sudden agony of fear. Eleanor was about to reply. Helm shook his head, led her gently toward the door. He said: “Leave us alone, please.” “Eleanor,” shrieked her father, “if you yield to this man, if you give up your father to be destroyed by him, I shall disinherit you, I shall curse you. I shall curse you. I shall curse you!” The daughter shivered from head to foot. Helm bore her firmly on, released her at the threshold. She cried, “George, let me stay! Please, dear! Let me talk with both of you. You are both so hard----” Her voice had been faltering, for again he had fixed her gaze with those kind, inflexible eyes of his. She became silent. In the hall he kissed her, released her. Then he returned to the sitting-room, closing the door behind him. He said to Clearwater, quietly, almost gently: “You had better tell your corporation to yield. If you don’t, it will break her heart, as you see.” “We will not yield!” cried Clearwater, shaking his fist in Helm’s face. “And after you have actually done your dastardly work, she will hate you. You think you own her, body and soul. You’ll find out afterward. She will hate you, she will leave you.” “She will neither leave me, nor hate me.” There was in his voice the finality not of mere conviction, but of truth itself. For he knew--as only those who really love and really are loved know--what he and his wife were to each other--the union that is a fusion which not even death can dissolve. After a pause he went on: “Shall I tell the attorney-general that formal notice of yielding will come to-morrow?” Silence. Then Clearwater sullenly: “Day after to-morrow.” Helm reflected, said: “That will do.” “You have won,” sneered Clearwater. “Not much of a victory. You knew you could count on her, hard-hearted fool that she is.” “Count on her?” replied Helm, tranquilly. “As on myself. And I may add that I knew what _you_ would do. What else could you do, if you failed to make my wife turn traitor and ask me to dishonor myself that you might go on robbing. Don’t try to shift and twist out of your agreement with me. Next time there will be no warning.” Clearwater reduced himself to the calm fury that is looking forward with a kind of serenity to a certain and complete revenge. Said he: “This is the last year you’ll ever hold office in this state--or anywhere in this country.” “Then your people have to live decent only about eight months longer,” was Helm’s amiable rejoinder. “I guess they can manage it.”