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_