"Impossible?" he repeated. "Yes. That is the word I spoke when I first heard that she had left me. Impossible? And why? Is a friend more true than a wife? After Lady Chetwynde failed me, why should I believe in Neville Pomeroy? And you--why did you not let me end my life in peace? Why did you bring to me this frightful--this damning evidence which destroys my faith not in man, but even in Heaven itself?" "Father! Oh, father!" moaned Zillah. But the Earl turned away. She seized his hand again in both hers. Again he shrank away, and withdrew his hand from her touch. She was abhorrent to him then! [Illustration: "He Sat Staring Blankly At Vacancy."] This was her thought. She stepped back, and at once a wild revulsion of feeling took place within her also. All the fierce pride of her hot, impassioned Southern nature rose up in rebellion against this sudden, this hasty change. Why should he so soon lose faith in her father? He guilty!--her father!--the noble--the gentle--the stainless--the true--he! the pure in heart--the one who through all her life had stood before her as the ideal of manly honor and loyalty and truth? Never! If it came to a question between Lord Chetwynde and that idol of her young life, whose memory she adored, then Lord Chetwynde must go down. Who was he that dared to think evil for one moment of the noblest of men! Could he himself compare with the father whom she had lost, in all that is highest in manhood? No. The charge was foul and false. Lord Chetwynde was false for so doubting his friend. All this flashed over Zillah's mind, and at that moment, in her revulsion of indignant pride, she forgot altogether all those doubts which, but a short time before, had been agitating her own soul --doubts, too, which were so strong that they had forced her to bring on this scene with the Earl. All this was forgotten. Her loyalty to her father triumphed over doubt, so soon as she saw another sharing that doubt. But her thoughts were suddenly checked. The Earl, who had but lately shrunk away from her, now turned toward her, and looked at her with a strange, dazed, blank expression of face, and wild vacant eyes. For a moment he sat turned toward her thus; and then, giving a deep groan, he fell forward out of his chair on the floor. With a piercing cry Zillah sprang toward him and tried to raise him up. Her cry aroused the household. Mrs. Hart was first among those who rushed to the room to help her. She flung her arms around the prostrate form, and lifted it upon the sofa. As he lay there a shudder passed through Zillah's frame at the sight which she beheld. For the Earl, in falling, had struck his head against the sharp corner of the table, and his white and venerable hairs were now all stained with blood, which trickled slowly over his wan pale face. CHAPTER XIX. A NEW PERPLEXITY.