disgrace, and possibly a prison.

A very little thing, he knew, would turn the scale, an effort made in
delirium, a draught that struck too shrewdly on the fevered frame, and
the issue, of stupendous importance as it was to both of them, lay in
his daughter's hands. Seaforth and the doctor slept the sleep of
exhaustion, and Deringham could have laughed with bitter mirthlessness
at the irony of it all. Until she had quarrelled with her maid, Alice
Deringham had apparently been incapable of putting on her own dresses
unassisted, and it seemed that the grim, mysterious destiny which
treated men as puppets and traversed all their schemes was the one
factor to reckon with in that comedy. Deringham, however, found little
solace in such reflections, and could not lie still, and rising,
strained his ears to listen. There was nothing but the moaning of the
wind, the ranch was very still, and the sound of his watch grew
maddening. If Alton was sleeping now, Deringham knew it was ticking
his last hold on good fame and fortune away. Twice he paced up and
down the room with uncovered feet, and then, quivering a little when
the floor creaked, opened the door that led into the one adjoining.

"Alice," he said, and, for he had thrown off the mask now, his daughter
wondered at his face.

"Hush," she said almost sternly, and then moved very quietly away from
the bed. Deringham came in and leaned upon the table beside her.

"The great question is still unanswered?" he said.

His daughter bent her head, and then looked at him steadily. "I think
we shall know in an hour or two. Is it important to you?"

Deringham, who was not wholly master of himself, made a little grimace,
and the girl glanced away from him with a curious shrinking. Under
stress of fatigue and anxiety the veneer had worn off both of them, and
in that impressive hour, when the spirit is bound most loosely to the
clay, each had seen something not hitherto suspected of the other's
inmost self. In the girl's case the sight had been painful, for all
that was good in her had risen uppermost just then. In Deringham's
there was very little but veneer, and craven fear and avarice looked
out through his eyes.

"Yes," he said in a voice that was the harsher for its lowness; "and to
you. I did not tell you, but if that man dies you will be the mistress
of Carnaby."

Alice Deringham made a little half-contemptuous gesture of impatience,
but the colour showed in he