At last she rose and pressed her hands tight to her throbbing temples. "Thank God," she whispered, for a faint flutter of life had rewarded her investigation. In a bewildered voice she murmured: "I must think. I must remember! We were all sitting here--we were talking." Again she called, feebly at first, then with a growing strength, for her husband, and when no answer came except the echo of her own voice, she left the room and went gropingly, supporting herself against furniture and wall, to the telephone--but the telephone, too, was dead. The storm had done that. Confused now with a torrent of alarms and a sense of futility, she came back to the man whose life seemed so tenuously suspended, having no plan beyond a Valkyrie passion of resolution to bring him back from the border of death by the sheer force of invincible will. She succeeded, after many attempts, in shifting him from his sitting posture to a greater ease. Between his still lips she forced brandy. After ages of suspense and vigil, with his head on her lap and her fingers wildly working at his wrists, she vacillated terribly between the hope that life was returning and the fear that it was waning. After other ages she saw his lids flicker almost imperceptibly and then, when anxiety had taken a heavy toll, his eyes looked up in uncomprehending life. Conscience bent her face close to his and there was breath on his lips and nostrils. Eben had been a Machiavelli in spirit only. In effect he had bungled. * * * * * Mystery still hung over the house of Eben Tollman an hour or two later, but the two figures that had sat with the quietness of unaccomplished death were again sensate and restored to full consciousness. Conscience had been able to go to her own room, and Stuart, now dressed, came slowly and as yet somewhat haltingly down the stairs, holding carefully to the rail. He was setting out to search for Eben Tollman, and to call in medical help. But in the hall he paused, and then, turning on impulse, went slowly into the living-room. There he stood looking about as a man who has dropped from his own planet to one wholly unfamiliar may seek to take his bearings. His eyes fell as he paused on two patches of white which showed against the dark richness of the rugs and laboriously he picked them up. One was a yellow envelope inscribed "S. F. & C. W." As a sudden blow may bring back a lost identity to the victim of amnesia the discovery electrified the man and he straightened into an abrupt erectness. His features lost their sleep-walking indefiniteness and his jaw stiffened.