What did it matter? He, Hector Brunton, knew the hollowness of all desires. Even in success, even in hatred, even in vengeance, could be no enduring satisfaction. A great mood of self-pity submerged his mind. Fame, riches, every fruit of his up-reaching--he had won. And the choicest fruits left only a bitterness in his mouth. How could a man enjoy those fruits in loneliness? Christ! but he was lonely--lonely. He hadn't even a friend. Not one single friend with whom to take counsel! Not one solitary being in all the world who would listen--as a friend listens--to---to the still, small scarce-articulate voice which had begun to whisper in Hector Brunton's soul. That voice, the still small voice of conscience, was whispering now. "Cruel," it whispered; "cruel. Set her free. Set her free!" Heavily Hector Brunton sat him down at his desk. His gray pupils stared vacantly at the light. He saw two faces in the light: his wife's face, torture-pale; and the face he imagined Lucy's, heavy-jowled, animal, yet with a hint of soul behind the animal eyes. The two faces seemed to be pleading with him, pleading for pity. "We have known love," they pleaded, "but you--how should you understand?" The faces vanished; and in their stead he saw Renée--insatiate, submissive, her mouth still upcurled for his. "_I_ am love," said the mouth of Renée. But always the still small voice of conscience whispered in Hector's soul. "Between love and lust," whispered the voice, "between the good and the bad that is in you, between the cruelty that cries for vengeance and the understanding which is pity--choose!" CHAPTER XXX 1 For Ronald Cavendish, the fortnight which intervened between his briefing and the Monday of the trial passed like an hour. All that he had ever hoped for seemed at last within reach: and his mind, concentrating, could spare no minute for introspection. Even the personal factor, that Brunton would be his opponent, dwindled into insignificance when compared with the supreme issue of winning; even his belief in his client's spiritual guiltlessness seemed paltry before the difficulties of proving her technically innocent. Yet the belief was there, keying him to effort, making him utterly oblivious of his every-day surroundings. But all that fortnight Aliette scarcely slept. Dozing or waking, two figures--the figures of Ronnie and of Hector--haunted her thoughts: she saw them, gowned and wigged, fiercely terrible, at death-grips for the soul of a woman--a woman whose face showed white and tormented in the dock--a woman who was no longer Lucy Towers, but herself. Sometimes, too, behind the woman in the dock, she saw Dennis--her dream-son--Dennis whose eyes, Ronnie's own blue eyes, stared accusingly at the mother who had born him to shame.