battle was not
theirs, that the contest was beyond the earthly plane, that this was no
struggle between human beings, but a battle between sanity and madness.

Its duration might have been spanned by three ticks of the great old clock
that stood in the corner of the hall telling the time.

Then came the ring of the knife falling on the floor. It was like the
breaking of a spell. Silas, white and bewildered-looking as a man suddenly
awakened from sleep, stood looking now at his released hand as though it
did not belong to him, then at Pinckney, and then at Phyl who had turned
her back upon him and was tottering as though about to fall. Pinckney,
stepping forward, was about to speak, when at that moment the door of the
supper room opened and a band of young people came out chatting and
laughing.

Calhoun, who was a man of resource, kicked the knife which slithered away
under one of the seats. Phyl, recovering herself, walked away towards the
stairs; Silas without a word, turned and vanished from sight past the
curtain of the corridor that led to the cloakroom.

Calhoun and Pinckney were left alone.

"What are you going to do?" asked Calhoun.

"I am at his disposal," replied the other. "I struck him."

"Struck him, damnation! He drew a knife on you; he ought to be hoofed out
of the club; he'd have had you only for that girl. I never saw anything so
splendid in my life."

"Yes," said Pinckney, "she saved my life. He was clean mad, but thank God
no one knows anything about it and we avoided a scene. Say nothing to any
one unless he wants to push the matter further. I am quite at his
disposal."

PART IV

CHAPTER I

When Silas reached the cloakroom he took a glance at himself in the
mirror, then putting on his overcoat and taking his hat from the attendant
he came back into the hall. Pinckney and Calhoun had just strolled away
into the ballroom; there was no one in the hall, and without a thought of
saying good-bye to his hostess, he left the house.

He felt no anger against Pinckney, nor did he think as he walked down
Legare Street that but for the mercy of God and the intervention of Phyl
he might at that moment have been walking between two constables, a
murderer with the blood of innocence on his hands.

Not that he was insensible to reason or the fitness of things, he had
always known and acknowledged that when in a passion he was not
accountable for his acts; he admitted the fact with regret and a