She knew nothing of first aid and she felt she never wanted to look at Eustace again. She hoped she hadn’t killed him, as she had no desire to be a murderess, even in self-defense. But the violence of that embrace and those kisses had turned her heart into granite. She could feel its weight. And then she was aware of a certain grim humor in the situation. Her would-be defiler was her legal husband! She walked up and down the hall until she heard a car racing up the avenue. She unbarred and unlocked the door. As she opened it Dr. Pelham and Elsie sprang out of the car and ran up the steps. “I’ve shot Eustace,” she announced briefly. “Thought he was a burglar. He’s in the library.” Dr. Pelham, bag in hand, went swiftly down the hall without a look at Gita. He was a surgeon on his way to a serious case, nothing more. Elsie grasped Gita’s hand and stared at her. Her face was white and quivering. “I did,” said Gita defiantly. “Couldn’t see who it was in the dark. Didn’t expect him till Friday.” Never would she breathe a word of that horrible scene to anyone. Hand in hand the girls walked reluctantly to the library. Dr. Pelham had cut out the arm of Bylant’s coat and shirt and was packing the wound with sterilized gauze. “Is he dead?” gasped Elsie. “No. Wounded in the shoulder, luckily. Is there a strong man about the place? We must get him upstairs to his room. Elsie, telephone for a nurse.” CHAPTER XIV Eustace had been carried upstairs. The nurse had arrived. Dr. Pelham was extracting the bullet on a hastily devised operating-table. The two girls sat before the fire Topper had made in the library, silent, after Elsie had explained that her brother had driven down to Atlantic City the day before on his monthly week-end visit. It was evident that Gita intended to make no confidences, and Elsie could only guess what had happened. She herself had almost fainted when she saw Eustace lying there, helpless, unconscious, looking as if every drop of blood in his body had run out. She wondered impotently at the perversity of Fate. For the first time she admitted to herself that she loved him. Loyalty to Gita and to herself had kept that knowledge safely locked in a remote inner cell of her brain. . . . She believed that if he had never met Gita Carteret she could have won him. He had admired her and sought her out whenever they had happened to meet. When he had visited Atlantic City he had called on her. She had given up too easily, but at that time she had been infatuated with Gita and felt a white passion of desire to serve her and help her to happiness: after the girl’s long wretched experience. She had cheerfully sacrificed herself, had, indeed, not given her own claims a thought. No doubt there had been also a desire to serve him. And for this! She knew from Gita’s cold disdainful face that he had played his last desperate card and lost.