ike head and, out of the parchment of his
bony face, his eyes burned grimly.

"This house--this farm--all of it--we have only by the sufferance of
Eben's generosity, and yet I've heard men call him close."

Conscience thought that she had lost the possibility of being stunned,
but now she sat speechless as her father continued.

"I never was a competent business man and I put affairs in Eben's hands
too late. He concealed from me how dire my straits were--and our income
continued--but it was coming out of his resources--not mine. If Tollman
had chosen to demand payment, we would have been wiped out."

"How long have you known this?"

"Since shortly after my affliction came upon me."

Conscience moved over and stood by the window. She pressed her temples
with her finger tips and spoke in a dead quiet. "You have known--all
that time--and you never told me. You have urged his suit and you never
let me guess that my suitor had already--bought me and paid for me."

With a low and bitter laugh--or the fragment of a laugh, she turned and
left the room.

After weeks of patient silence, Tollman asked once more, "Conscience, is
there still no hope for me?" To his surprise she met his questioning
gaze very directly and answered,

"That depends on your terms."

"I make no terms," he hastened to declare. "I only petition."

"If you ask a wife who can be a real wife to you--who can give you all
her love and life--then the answer must still be no," she went on
steadily with something like a doggedness of resignation. "I can't lie
to you. I have only a broken heart. Beyond friendship and gratitude, I
have nothing to offer you. I can't even promise that I will ever stop
loving--him. But--" her words came with the flatness of unending
soul-fag--"I suppose I can give you the lesser things; fidelity,
respect; all the petty allegiance that can go on without fire or
spirit."

"I will take what you can give me," he declared, and at the sudden ring
of autumnal ardor in his voice and the avid light in his eyes, she found
herself shivering with fastidious distaste. She did not read the eyes
with full understanding, yet instinctively she shrank, for they held the
animal craving of a long-suppressed desire--the physical love of a man
past his youth which can satisfy itself with mere possession. "I will
take what you can give me, and I shall win your love in the end. I have
no fear; no doubts. I lack the lighter charms of a youthful c