“Seventy times seven! She said that. Oh, my God, my God! Seventy times seven! Seventy times seven!” Convulsive, mighty sobs shook his great body. The boy was terrified, too terrified to speak. His father’s eyes fell upon the stained bit of paper, lying where it had fallen from his fingers. Shuddering, he picked it up. There in poor wandering letters he read: “My dear, dear love—I want you so—oh—I want you so. I want to ask you to forgive—to tell you—oh, I want you—with me—now—dear heart——” Then one desperate trailing scrawl as if death were clutching at her fingers. “Remember—70 X 7——” Then a poor faltering “X” and the marks of blood. “She pit her dyin’ lips till it,” old Jinny had said. With an agonising cry he put the boy from him, scrambled up the steps, staggered through the living room, felt his way blindly into the bedroom where she lay. One glance he gave at the white still face touched with the calm dignity of death. Then with a bitter cry he fell on his knees at the bedside, gathered the quiet form in his arms, and there drank slowly, drop by drop, to the last dregs, the cup of his Gethsemane. Terrified, petrified with his terror, his little son stood behind him, his limbs shaking under him, impotent of motion, desperately longing but unable to escape from the room, till at length, overcome by the tumultuous tide of his emotions, with a sobbing cry, “Oh, Daddy, I’m afraid,” he flung himself on his knees at his father’s side and there clung to him. In that position the wife of Colonel Pelham found them half an hour later. “Paul, dear, come with me,” she said, trying to lift him up. “I want Daddy,” whispered the boy, still clinging to his father. “Mr. Gaspard,” she said sharply, “this boy must be put to bed at once. He will be ill.” The man raised his face, ghastly, unshaven, horrible. “What do you say?” he asked dully. “The boy, the boy,” she said, pointing to him. “He ought to be in bed. He will be ill.” “Yes, yes,” he said stupidly. “Certainly, he must go to bed. Come, Paul.” He rose to his feet, and with the boy in his arms staggered into the living room, stood there, swaying drunkenly, and would have fallen had not Colonel Pelham caught him and steadied him to a couch where he lay moaning, “Gone, gone, gone! Oh, my God! Gone forever!” till from sheer weakness, due to starvation and emotional exhaustion, he sank into deathlike sleep. The boy crept in beside him, stroking his cheek and whispering, “Poor Daddy! Poor Daddy!” till he too fell asleep. CHAPTER VIII The “big white house” was overflowing with music, or, rather, with musical acrobatics. Scales, major and minor, octaves, arpeggios, and all other musical combinations were madly chasing each other up and down the keyboard.