As Alexander Hulings watched him the old man's countenance grew livid, his jaw dropped; he was at the point of falling. He gasped, his hands beating the air; then the unnatural color receded, words became distinguishable: “Gisela!... Never be forgiven! Hellish!” It was as if Death had touched John Wooddrop on the shoulder, dragging a scarifying hand across his face, and then briefly, capriciously, withdrawn. “Hulings! Hulings,” he articulated, sinking weakly on a chair, “we must save her. And, anyhow, God knows we were blind!” He peered out of suffused rheumy eyes at Alexander, appalling in his sudden disintegration under shock and the weight of his years. “I'm done!” he said tremulously. “And there's a good bit to see to—patent lawyer tomorrow, and English shipments. Swore I'd keep you from it.” He held out a hand, “But there's Gisela, brought down between us now, and—and iron's colder than a daughter, a wife. We'd best cover up the past quick as we can!” At the instant of grasping John Wooddrop's hand Alexander Hulings' inchoate emotion shifted to a vast realization, blotting out all else from his mind. In the control of the immense Wooddrop resources he was beyond, above, all competition, all danger. What he had fought for, persistently dreamed, had at last come about—he was the greatest Ironmaster of the state! End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tubal Cain, by Joseph Hergesheimer