"Father!" cried the girl. "You don't know what you're saying." His face had become frenzied and purpled, his hands were shaking. His voice was a thunder, rumbling with its agitation. "I must have sinned deeply--but if the Almighty sees fit to take from me my health, my child, my last days of peace on earth--if He chooses to chastise me as He chastised Job--I shall still fight for His righteous will, and war on the iniquitous chil--" The last word broke with a choke in his throat. The white head rocked from side to side and the hands clawed the air. Then William Williams hunched forward and lurched from his chair to the floor. In an instant Farquaharson was at his side and bending over the unconscious form and a few minutes later, still insensible, the figure had been laid on a couch and the roadster was racing for a physician. When Conscience came out into the yard later, where her lover was awaiting her, her lips were pale and her eyes tortured. She went straight into his outstretched arms and with her head on his shoulder sobbed out a misery that shook her. At last the man asked softly, "What did the doctor say?" And she answered brokenly. "It seems that--besides the paralysis he has a weak--heart." The man held her close. "I wish to God it could have been averted. I tried." "You did all you could," she declared. "But, Stuart, when he came back to consciousness, his eyes were awful! I've never seen such terror in a human face. He couldn't speak at first and when he could ... he whispered in absolute agony, 'Has she gone?' He thought I'd left him lying there--and gone with you." "Great God!" It was more a groan than an exclamation. "And when he saw me he stretched out his hands like a child and began crying over me, but even then he said bitterly, 'That man's name must never be mentioned in this house.'... What are we to do?" "There is only one thing to do," he told her. "We are young enough to wait. You can't desert a dying father." While they talked the physician came out of the door. "The patient will pull through this attack," he said briskly. "It's a leaky valve. There is only one rule that I have to lay upon you. It is absolutely vital that he shall not be excited. A blow with an ax would be no more fatal than another such stroke." Conscience looked desperately about her, as Stuart with the doctor beside him started the car again down the drive. In a front window her eyes lighted on a flaming branch of maple leaves. Only two hours ago she and her lover had been watching the sunlight spill through the gorgeous filter of the painted foliage. They had carried in their hearts the spirit of carnival. Now the storm had broken and swept them. She walked unsteadily to the veranda of the house and dropped down on the steps. Her head was swimming and her life was in a vortex. CHAPTER VIII