"Come," said the doctor presently; "it's too late now. I'll call for you after a time." He took Halsey by the arm and led him from the room. Returning, he signed for Virginia Rawn also to leave the sick chamber. Left alone, the medical man turned to the professional nurse in attendance. "Keep it quiet," he said. "It would hurt my practice--do you hear?" He kicked beneath the bed a small broken vial, and wiped away the stain from the lips of the dying woman. The doctor, of course, had his guess, the public its guess, the daily papers theirs. The truth was, Grace Halsey, by butler route, had learned of the _tête-à-tête_ of her husband and her stepmother a half hour before this time. CHAPTER X THOSE WHO REAP THE WHIRLWIND I Grace Halsey, dead, her crippled child dead beside her, never knew the contents of the letter which had been received for her that morning. It still laid on the hall table unnoticed. There was almost none to pay attention to the many duties of the household. The last servants had begun to pass, scenting disaster even as had others. The magic which had builded this mansion house now lacked strength to hold its tenantry. There remained now only one man--the butler, lingering for his pay. Only two persons might still be said to be actuated by any sense of loyalty or duty to Graystone Hall and its owner--Halsey and Virginia Rawn. Of duty--to what and to whom? They dared not ask, dared not think. They waited, they knew not for what. The master of this mansion house was forth upon his business. Somewhere, he was hastening toward his home. When he might be expected they did not know. Nor did the master know what news awaited him upon his coming. II The evening dailies came out upon the streets, reeling and reeking with the last accumulating sensations of the Rawn disasters. The business world continued to rub its eyes, the social world continued to exult. Many and many a woman smiled that evening as she contemplated proofs of the downfall of one whom once she had envied. The Rawns, it now seemed, had all along been known, by everybody who was anybody, to have been nobody at all. They who had sown the wind, had the whirlwind for their reaping. This was the general day of harvest for Graystone Hall. But the day passed on. Shadows lengthened beyond the tall towers and softened as they fell toward the east. The soft airs of evening, turning, came in across the open gallery front. Night came, night unbroken by more than a few lights in all the myriad windows of this stately monument which John Rawn had builded as proof of his personal success. Vehicles, passing slowly, held occupants staring in curiosity at this vast, vacant pile. Human sympathy lacked, human aid there was not. III