uel element
to the fire. Heretofore his consciousness had felt merely the
thwarting of his pride, his authority, his right to loyalty. Now his
daughter's entreaty brought home to him the bitter realization that he
had been attained on another side--that of his family affection. This
man had also killed for him his only child. For the child had
renounced him, had thrust him outside herself into the lonely and
ruined temple of his pride. At the first thought his face twisted with
emotion, then hardened to cold malice.

"Love you!" he cried. "Love you! An unnatural child! An ingrate! One
who turns from me so lightly!" He laughed bitterly, eyeing her with
chilling scrutiny. "You dare recall my love for you!" Suddenly he
stood upright, levelling a heavy, trembling arm at her. "You think an
appeal to my love will save him! Fool!"

Virginia's breath caught in her throat. She straightened, clutched the
neckband of her gown. Then her head fell slowly forward. She had
fainted in her lover's arms.

They stood exactly so for an appreciable interval, bewildered by the
suddenness of this outcome; Galen Albret's hand out-stretched in
denunciation; the girl like a broken lily, supported in the young
man's arms; he searching her face passionately for a sign of life;
Me-en-gan, straight and sorrowful, again at the door.

Then the old man's arm dropped slowly. His gaze wavered. The lines of
his face relaxed. Twice he made an effort to turn away. All at once
his stubborn spirit broke; he uttered a cry, and sprang forward to
snatch the unconscious form hungrily into his bear clasp, searching
the girl's face, muttering incoherent things.

"Quick!" he cried, aloud, the guttural sounds jostling one another in
his throat. "Get Wishkobun, quick!"

Ned Trent looked at him with steady scorn, his arms folded.

"Ah!" he dropped distinctly in deliberate monosyllables across the
surcharged atmosphere of the scene. "So it seems you have found your
heart, my friend!"

Galen Albret glared wildly at him over the girl's fair head.

"She is my daughter," he mumbled.

_Chapter Seventeen_

They carried the unconscious girl into the dim-lighted apartment of
the curtained windows, and laid her on the divan. Wishkobun, hastily
summoned, unfastened the girl's dress at the throat.

"It is a faint," she announced in her own tongue. "She will recover in
a few minutes; I will get some water."

Ned Trent wiped the moisture from his forehead wi