The hours passed and he sat helpless, bound in that awful chain of frozen horror.  In vain he struggled in a wild rage for freedom.  No muscle stirred.  Where was his boasted will power now?  Hand and foot, faithful, uncomplaining slaves for so many years, had rebelled at last!

His brain seemed on fire and the flashing thoughts blinded him with their glare.  The letters rose from their sepulchre and, clothed in the majesty of a dead man’s faith, looked at him with an awful reproach, until his very soul bowed in the dust with shame.  His will still lay upon the desk, open at the paragraph “to my dear niece, Evadne,” and the words “in trust,” like red hot irons, branded him a felon in the sight of God and men!

He remembered having once read a quotation from a great writer,—­“When God says, ’You must not lie and you do lie, it is not possible for Deity to sweep his law aside and say—­’No matter.’” Did God make no allowances for the nineteenth century?

The others returned from the Festival, and Louis passed the door whistling.  He had had a rare evening of pleasure with Evadne.  Towards its close, under cover of the rolling harmonies, he had leaned over and whispered “I love you, dear!” and Evadne had held out her hand to him with the low pleading cry, “Oh, Louis, if you really do, then set me free!” but he had only smiled and taken the hand, on which his ring was gleaming, into his, and settled his arm more securely upon the back of her chair; and John Randolph, sitting opposite with Dick and Miss Diana, had watched the little scene and drawn his own conclusions with a sigh.

The night drew on.  The electric lights which it was Judge Hildreth’s fancy to have ablaze in every room downstairs until the central current was shut off, still gleamed steadily upon the rigid figure before the desk, with the white, drawn face and the awful look of horror in its staring eyes.  In an agony he tried to call, but no sound escaped the lips, set in a sphinx-like silence.

He must shake off this strange lethargy.  It was not possible for him to die—­he had not time.  To-morrow was the meeting of the Panhattan directors—­they were relying upon him to work through the second call on stock—­and two of his notes fell due, if he did not retire them his credit would be lost at the bank; and there was the banquet to the English capitalists, with whom he was negotiating a mining deal; and he must arrange with his broker to float some more shares of the “Silverwing”—­and manipulate, manipulate, manipulate—­

An agonized, voiceless cry went up to heaven.  “Oh, God, let me have to-morrow!”

In the morning a servant found him, when she came to clean the room, and fled screaming from the presence of the silent figure with the awful entreaty in its staring eyes.

Louis hurried downstairs to learn the cause of the commotion, followed by Mrs. Hildreth, swept for once off her pedestal of stately calm.