"I do believe you," he answered, quietly, "and am glad you came, though I can tell you nothing satisfactory. The patient has slept all day--still sleeps---- he will awaken to life or death. We are only waiting." "Waiting!" That word chilled the fiery, impulsive soul of Paul Winans into a dumb horror. Waiting!--for what! To see his work completed. What had he done? Taken in cold blood a human life that at this moment, in his swift remorse and self-accusation, he would have freely given his own to save; in the height of his jealous madness committed a deed from which his calmer retrospection revolted in horror. He looked from one to the other in pale, impotent despair. He had gone his length--the length of human power and passion--now God's hand held the balance. "Then, at least, you will let me wait," he said. "If he dies, I shall surrender myself up to justice. If he lives, I shall all the sooner know that I am not a murderer." "You shall stay, certainly, and welcome," Willard said, cordially, touched by the evident suffering of the other. "Very well; I will sit here and wait, with thanks. I do not deserve this kindness." Lulu stole from the room, leaving them alone together, and resumed her place up stairs. The patient slept calmly on, her mother placidly watching him. Once or twice her brother looked quietly in, and as quietly withdrew. There was something on his mind that must be spoken. He turned once and looked at his companion as he sat upright in his chair, still and pale almost as his victim lay up stairs. "Winans," he said, slowly, "we have known each other for a long time, and I knew your wife long before you ever met her, and knew her but to reverence her as a pearl among women. Will you pardon me if I confess to an interest in her that lends me to inquire frankly if you think you are doing her justice?" "Clendenon, I know that I am not. I know that I am unworthy of her--pure, injured angel that she is--but what can I do? I dare not remain near her. I should but make her miserable. It maddens me, in my jealous bitterness, when I remember that young, fair, and sweet as she was when I first met her, the pure page of her heart had already been inscribed with the burning legend of a first love. Her first love lost to me, her second only given to me, I cannot bear! When I can overcome this fiery passion, and if Bruce Conway lives, I will return to her--not till then." "You are wrong, my friend--bitterly wrong. Think of what she suffers, of the scandal, the conjecture that your course will create. You should be her defender, not leave her defenseless to meet the barbed arrows of caviling society. Return to your injured wife, Winans. Take the candid advice of one who esteems you both. It is so hard on her. She suffers deeply, I feel." "Clendenon, hush! You madden me, and cannot shake my firm resolve--would that I had never met her."