"No. I am not fit for the company of respectable people. You do not know how low I have fallen. I have lost my caste. I live only for one purpose. When that is accomplished I mean to die." "That is very foolish talk for a man," she remarked calmly. "I, too, have a purpose in life, but when it is accomplished I mean to live on, to live more fully." He smiled mockingly. "There is yet nothing of kinship between us," he said, "for between your purpose and mine there could be no more comparison than between a street puddle and Feldwick Farm. It is a life I seek." "I would to God, David," she cried fiercely, "that it were the same life. For at the end of my purpose is death." He gazed at her speechless. For the first time the change in her was brought home to him. The stern lines in her face had become rigid and cruel, a new light shone in her eyes. Joan, the domineering, had become Joan the tragical. He listened to her fascinated--and his limbs shook with fear. "Can you wonder what it is, David? You have tasted the bitterness of strange happenings, and you have almost forgotten your name and whence you came. It is your task which I have made mine. Yet it is not too late for you, if you will help." "Speak out," he whispered, hoarsely. "You knew of Father's death?" "You knew that he was robbed and murdered?" The man who was lurking so far as he could in the shadows of the room said nothing--but his eyes seemed to become like balls of red fire, and his livid cheeks were horrible to look upon. Even Joan was startled. "You knew of these things, David?" she cried. "Ay," he answered, "I knew. What of it?" "Can you ask? You have drifted far away from us, David, yet you, too, are a Strong and the last of our race. He was murdered, and as yet the man who slew him goes unpunished. Can you ask me then what should be the purpose of my life? It is to see him hang." She had risen to her feet, a grim, threatening figure in the unshaded lamplight. The yellow glare fell upon her hard, set face, her tightly compressed lips and black eyebrows. Of a sudden David realised her strange and wonderful likeness to the dead man. His own bloodless lips parted, and the room rang with horrid laughter, surely the laughter of a lunatic. "Oh, it is a wonderful purpose that," he cried. "To see him hang--hang by the neck. Bah! What concern of yours, Joan, is it, I wonder?" "I am his daughter." "And I his son. And, listen, my sister, here is news for you. It was no living man at whose door his death lies, but at a woman's. A woman's, I tell you. You understand? I swear it." She looked at him doubtfully. Surely he was raving. "A woman's, David?" "Ay, a woman's. And there are others too--her victims. Look at me. I myself am one. Her victim, body and soul corrupt. If one could only reach her throat."