e ripped open the right sleeve and thrust in the
needle that gives oblivion.

Adelaide went to the window and listened. Before her in the moonlight was
the place where that tempest of hate and murder had burst and raged. Once
more her heart hardened in the pitiless fury of outraged mercy. A moan
from Estelle stung her, and she leaned forward the better to catch the
music of the mob's distant shriek. Silence for full five minutes; then a
sound like that which bursts from the throats of the bloodhounds as they
bury their fangs in their quarry. She gave a faint scream, covered her
face. "Oh, spare him! Spare him!" she cried. And she sank to the floor in
a faint, for she knew that Arden Wilmot was dead.

* * * * *

Adelaide took Estelle's store until Estelle came back to it, her surface
calm like the smooth river that hides in its tortured bosom the
deep-plunged rapids below the falls. The day after Estelle's return
Adelaide began to study architecture at the university; soon she was made
an instructor, with the dean delighted and not a little mystified by her
energy and enthusiasm. Yet the matter was simple and natural: she had
emerged from her baptism of blood and fire--a woman; at last she had
learned what in life is not worth while; she was ready to learn what it
has to offer that is worth while--the sole source of the joys that have
no reaction, of the content that is founded upon the rock.

CHAPTER XXVI

CHARLES WHITNEY'S HEIRS

Eight specialists, including Romney, of New York and Saltonstal, of
Chicago, had given Charles Whitney their verdicts on why he was weak and
lethargic. In essential details these diagnoses differed as widely as
opinions always differ where no one knows, or can know, and so everyone
is free to please his own fancy in choosing a cloak for his ignorance.
Some of the doctors declared kidneys sound but liver suspicious; others
exonerated liver but condemned one or both kidneys; others viewed kidneys
and liver with equal pessimism; still others put those organs aside and
shook their heads and unlimbered their Latin at spleen and pancreas. In
one respect, however, the eight narrowed to two groups. "Let's figure it
out trial-balance fashion," said Whitney to his private secretary, Vagen.
"Five, including two-thousand-dollar Romney, say I 'may go soon.' Three,
including our one-thousand-dollar neighbor, Saltonstal, say I am 'in no
immediate danger.' But what