the Webster threshold, let alone offer any assistance to its mistress; but
the siren who beckoned him on had cast such a potent spell over his will
that now without open protest, although with a certain inward compunction,
he followed her through the hall into the kitchen.

Upon the floor was stretched Ellen Webster--crumpled, helpless, inert--her
eyes closed and her stern face set as in a death mask. How long she had
lain there it was impossible to tell. If she had called for succor it had
been to empty walls.

As with mingled sensations Martin stood looking down upon her unconscious
form, Lucy threw herself upon her knees beside the woman and gently
touched her wrists and heart.

"She isn't dead," she murmured presently. "She must either have had a fall
or some sort of shock. We must get her upstairs and send for a doctor."

The "_we_" told Martin that the girl had not even considered the chance of
his refusing to come to her assistance.

"Tony is in the village," she went on, "and I don't know what I should
have done but for you. How fortunate that you were here!"

Was it fortunate? Martin asked himself.

At last the moment for which he had longed and prayed had come,--the
moment when the fate of his enemy lay in his hands, and it was within his
power to grant or deny succor. There had never been a question in his mind
what he would do should this opportunity arise. Had he not declared over
and over again that Ellen Webster might die before he would lift a finger
to help her? He had meant it too. All the bitterness of his soul had gone
into the vow. And now here he was confronted by the very emergency he had
craved from Fortune. The woman he hated was at his mercy. What should he
do? Should he stand stanchly by his word and let her life go out into the
Beyond when he might perhaps stay its flight? Or should he weakly
repudiate his word and call her from the borderland to continue to taunt
and torment him? If a doctor were not summoned quickly she might die, and
her death be upon his soul. Did he wish to stain himself with this
crime,--for crime it would be. Was the revenge worth the hours of
self-condemnation that might follow? Who was he that he should judge Ellen
Webster and cut off her life before its time? Vengeance is mine: I will
repay, saith the Lord.

The phrase rang insistently in Martin's ears. He tried to stifle
it--ignore it--but still the assertion continued to repeat itself within
his consciou