noured name of Tresslyn she
gave no sign: if the slightest resentment existed in her soul toward the
daughter who was no longer as wax in her hands, she hid the fact securely
behind a splendid mask of unconcern. As for the old man upstairs she had
but a single thought: an insistent one it was, however, and based itself
upon her own dread of the thing that was killing him.

George Tresslyn, white-faced and awed, sat like a graven image, looking at
the floor. He was not there because he wanted to be, but because a rather
praiseworthy allegiance to Anne had mastered his repugnance. Somewhere in
his benumbed intelligence flickered a spark of light which revealed to him
his responsibility as the head of the family. Anne was his sister. She was
lovely. He would have liked to be proud of her. If it were not for the
millions of that old man upstairs he could have been proud of her, and by
an odd reasoning, even more ashamed of himself than he was now. He was not
thinking of the Thorpe millions, however, as he sat there brooding; he was
not wondering what Anne would do for him when she had her pay in hand. He
was dumbly praising himself for having refused to sell his soul to
Templeton Thorpe in exchange for the fifty thousand dollars with which the
old man had baited him on three separate occasions, and wishing that Lutie
could know. It was something that she would have to approve of in him! It
was rather pitiful that he should have found a grain of comfort in the
fact that he had refused to kill a fellow man!

Anne took several turns up and down the room. There was a fine line
between her dark, brooding eyes, and her nostrils were distended as if
breathing had become difficult for her.

"I told him once that if such a thing ever happened to me, I'd put an end
to myself just as soon as I knew," she said, addressing no one, but
speaking with a distinctness that was startling. "I told him that one
would be justified in taking one's life under such circumstances. Why
should one go on suffering--"

"What are you saying, Anne?" broke in her mother sharply. George looked
up, astonishment struggling to make its way through the dull cloud on his
face.

Anne stopped short. For a moment she appeared to be dazed. She went paler
than before, and swayed. Her brother started up from his chair, alarmed.

"I say, Anne old girl, get hold of yourself!" he exclaimed. "None of that,
you know. You mustn't go fainting or anything like that. Walk