“If they knew more, I would either have to clear myself by the whole truth, or else be disgraced in their eyes,” she murmured. And on the instant call of her New York agents she had returned now to strike a death blow to all Harold Vreeland’s criminal schemes. But she was so sadly weak in her own defenses, against the laws of nature, of God’s holy sacrament of marriage, and the pleading eyes of her innocent child! And yet Vreeland’s demoralization forced desperate measures upon her now. If he should die or abscond, then, there was ruin to face. And on this night, when her husband mourned in agony over his forfeited paradise and his childless age, the unhappy wife and mother only awaited the moment when Harold Vreeland would fall into the snares so skillfully set for him. That victory won, then she would bid adieu to the “Street’s” mad ventures, her secret trust once resigned, peace, love and happiness awaited her at Lake Malar. But safety first, peace afterward. She felt whither the undercurrent of speculation had swept her. On a lee shore! “I can tell Romaine all when she is my very own, and she shall choose between us then, and judge us both. “She alone has the right to the truth.” This vow upon her knees had quieted Margaret Cranstoun’s heart, for she only now awaited Roundsman Dan Daly’s coming triumph to summon Senator Alynton. Once the document was honorably out of her hands, then the Queen of the Street could abdicate, and go “far from the madding crowd,” where “beyond their voices there is peace.” The hour of loathing her excited environment had come at last. It seemed as if some subtle commune of spirit had brought the long-estranged husband and wife together in spirit on this very evening, for Margaret Cranstoun dreamed of the loyal husband of her youth, when she fell asleep, murmuring “Lead, kindly Light.” There were angels pleading with them both—angels of white, unfolded wings. For the child’s sake, they pleaded for a hearing. And the next morning she was shaken at heart, as the gusty pines are thrilled by the wild winds of night, when she read the long appeal wrung from Arnold Cranstoun’s heart by the hours of his lonely midnight agony. His agony had overmastered the proud spirit at last. The deserted wife’s tears fell on the blotted pages over which the strong man had leaned in all the ecstasy of a last appeal. He knew that there would be an answer, for his messenger was bidden to return. And all that day, James Garston waited, while his estranged wife trembled at the voice of her own heart, and bowed her head over her daughter’s picture in an agony of speechless love. She dared all for herself, but only to save the child of her hungry heart. She feared the fatal sentence of these awful words of Holy Writ: “For the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the heads of the children.” That thought brought her to her knees now, and she walked alone in the dark valley of silent sorrows.