A sick horror overcame her, that men were so insensible to the truth. What could one do with them? It was evident from the whole tone of the story she had read that men had already made up their minds as to Counsell's guilt. Let one of them raise the cry and all were ready to give tongue as thoughtlessly as a pack of hounds. It was not the desire for justice that moved them but a sort of blood lust. They would try him with all their solemn farcical forms of justice, but none the less he would be railroaded to a shameful death! "Dad! You mustn't. You don't know what you're doing!" she murmured, swaying. He stared his displeasure. "Pendleton, is it possible that you ... that this young man..." She contrived some sort of a laugh. "What nonsense!" He turned out of the door saying: "I must act at once." Pen gasped: "Dad!" and keeled over on a chair. The swoon was perfectly genuine, but she lost consciousness only for the space of a breath, and thereafter her wits worked with the swiftness of desperation. He was deaf to truth, to reason, to sense, very well then, she must use a woman's weapons against him. It was Pendleton's transports of distress that gave her her cue. "Penny, Penny, my child!" he was crying wildly. Pen's mother had died a young woman of a heart attack, and the fear that Pen might have inherited her weakness was ever present in the good, absurd little man's breast. It was Pen's final weapon. Be it said to her credit she had never used it before. She put her hand to her breast without speaking. "Oh, my child! Look at me! Speak to me!" he implored. "Help me to my room!" she whispered. He made a manful attempt to pick her up in his arms, but she was as big as he. He could not lift her. "What shall I do!" he wailed, wringing his hands. "I can walk," she said. "If you will help me." "But the stairs!" "Let me lie down in the drawing-room until I feel better." He helped her across the hall and Pen sank down on the old linen-covered sofa with the broken springs. She was still pressing her hand to her breast in that mute gesture that drove him to distraction. In truth she was pale enough, but it was not from heart disease. He made her as comfortable as he could; he brought her a glass of water. He scampered back into the hall to call up the doctor. After agitated appeals to other subscribers to get off the line he finally got Doctor Hance on Absolom's Island. But evidently the doctor declined to make the long drive around the head of the creeks and down the impassable Neck road. Pendleton must come for him in his boat he said. In vain the distracted father pleaded that he could not leave his child; the doctor was firm. Finally Pendleton said: "Very well, I'll come at once. Wait for me on the steamboat dock." Pen's breast became easier. This plan suited her very well.