His companion was not one who indulged in platitudes. Some men, kind-hearted and pitying, would have reminded him that he was still young, that life was rich in promise, that time would heal, or, at any rate, sear, the ugliest wounds. But Dacre said none of these things. He merely asked if Power meant to tell him what really happened in the Adirondacks. A good talker, he was also a good listener. Power would recover, he was convinced. He was not the first man, nor would he be the last, to clasp a phantom and find it air. Meanwhile, outspoken confidence should provide an efficient safety-valve for emotions contained at too high a pressure. Power yielded to this friendly urging, but not instantly. Indeed, he astonished the Englishman by his next utterance. "Nearly four years ago," he said, looking back at the ranch "in that room where you found me today, I was reading 'The Autocrat' to Nancy one night, and a certain passage caught our attention. It ran somewhat like this: 'I would have a woman as true as death. At the first lie which works from the heart outward, she should be tenderly chloroformed into a better world.' Both of us laughed then, and now I know why we laughed. We were ignorant. Holmes, genial cynic that he was, understood women; he wrote a vital thing when he described the sort of lie that comes from the heart. I put trust in two women, and one of them has betrayed it. If I live another fifty years, I shall never understand why Nancy left me--never, never! I would as soon have thought of suspecting an angel from heaven of disloyalty as Nancy." "Has she proved disloyal?" "What else? I tried to find comfort in the belief that her father compelled her to accompany him by threatening to kill her if she refused. But, in these days, that sort of melodrama does not endure beyond its hour. She could have escaped him fifty times during the last six days. She could have appealed to you for help. Mary Van Ralten would at least have shielded her from murder. Yet, what are the facts? In a letter to me she pleaded duty as an excuse. She must have had some similar plea in her mind when she spoke to you. And she has gone to Europe--to rejoin Marten!" He broke off with a gesture of disdain. He was in revolt. The statue which had glowed into life under the breath of his love was hardening into polished ivory again. "May I see that letter?" said Dacre. "Yes. Here it is." The older man read and reread Nancy's sorrow-laden words. "She tells you her poor heart is breaking--I believe her--in every syllable," he said. "Believe her--when she prates of duty--to Marten?" "I don't profess to understand, yet I believe. I do, on my soul!" Power's face grew dark with a grim humor that was more tragic than misery. "Am I to follow--by the next steamer?" he demanded. "No. She will come back--send for you. The present deadlock cannot last."