That Potter had put upon that word a construction far different from her own she did not realize. Perhaps it would not have mattered if she had. Could one choose between defilements? It would have been impossible for her to comprehend an obscenity which would have befouled her more than her father's treachery and treason had done.... And she wept. It was not in her to love with reserve, mildly, sweetly, as it was not in her to live calmly, staidly, circumspectly. When she gave her love it was with fiery recklessness, holding back nothing, making no compromises ... and that love had been caught in the ruthless spring trap of a horrid reality, caught and tortured and restrained of its freedom. The fire-white cruelty of it was her knowledge that her love could not die. Hours slipped by, one upon the heels of another, and thwarted love took for its companion _fear_.... Potter was in danger. She had warned him, but would her warning not bring him within the grasp of a peril he would not otherwise have approached? She knew it would. Potter was not one to leave his battles to other champions; what was his own he would defend. When those men came, bearing awful death in their hands, they would find him there. She could see him waiting. Then the massive house shuddered, windows rattled, bits of glass tinkled to the floor, and a mighty roar swallowed up the voices of the earth.... Hildegarde uttered no cry, made no movement, but stood erect in the middle of her room, eyes staring, fists clenched. She _knew_! They had succeeded, the thing was done!... But Potter--had it touched him? Had it mangled, torn, killed him? She had but one thought now--she must know. She tore open her door, rushed down the stairs and burst into her father's library. Herman von Essen was standing in the middle of the floor, pasty-faced, unsteady, a man face to face with a vision of horror. "What was that?" demanded Hildegarde. Von Essen gulped, started, opened his mouth soundlessly, and then found stammering speech. "I--don't--know," he said. "You lie!" she said, in a voice brittle, metallic. He stared at her, uncomprehending, and wagged his head vaguely. "You lie!" she repeated. "You know what it was--you know it was murder!" "Murder...." he repeated. "No...." "He was there," she said. "If you've killed him--" Von Essen shook himself together, peered at her dazedly, seemed to grasp a sinister knowledge in her words. "Who was where?" he snarled. "What are you talking about?" "Potter Waite was there," she said. "Potter Waite!... What do you know--" He stopped, stared at her as if he had not seen her before, and his face grew livid with something menacing--the expression of a rat driven into a corner. He sprang upon her, caught her by the shoulders, shook her brutally. "What do you know?... What do you know?" he repeated, again and again.