he had begun to consider the problem, as seeming difficulties arose, he
had turned coolly from one alternative to another. And then slowly a
sickening sense of the truth had begun to dawn upon him--and like a man
lost in a great forest, peril around him, he had plunged then
desperately in this direction and in that, as a glimmering point of
light here or there had seemed to promise an avenue of escape--only to
find it vanish at almost the first step, the way closed as by some
invisible, remorseless power. No, not invisible--it seemed to take the
form of the Patriarch--for at every turn the majestic figure stood and
would not let him pass.

Madison's face was gray now as he walked up and down the room--there was
his own revulsion, his abhorrence at the part he had played, a frantic,
honorable eagerness to be rid of it; there were these others too who
looked to him, the Flopper and Pale Face Harry; and there was--Helena!
He did not dare to look at the misery in her face again--he was unmanned
enough now.

And then Helena spoke.

"It--it seems," she said, in a low broken way, "as if--as if God did not
want to pardon us--as if our repentance had come too late, and that
there was no Eleventh Hour for us." Then, in passionate pleading, facing
Madison: "God cannot mean that--it is we who cannot see. There is some
way out--there must be--there _must_ be."

"It begins and ends with the Patriarch," said Madison monotonously. "We
can't sacrifice him--can we! What's the use of going over it again? It
all comes back to the same point--the Patriarch."