His eyes opened and fixed upon her in a look so agonized, that she leaned, faint, against the door jamb.  “What is it, father?” she gasped.

He did not answer—­did not move—­sat rigidly on, with that expression unchanging, as if it had been fixed there by the sculptor who had made the statue.  She tried to go to him, but at the very thought she was overwhelmed by such fear as she had not had since she, a child, lay in her little bed in the dark, too terrified by the phantoms that beset her to cry out or to move.  “Father!  What is it?” she repeated, then wheeled and fled along the hall crying:  “Mother!  Mother!”

Ellen came hurrying down the stairs.

“It’s father!” cried Adelaide.

Together they went into the back parlor.  He was still motionless, with that same frozen yet fiery expression.  They went to him, tried to lift him.  Ellen dropped the lifeless arm, turned to her daughter.  And Adelaide saw into her mother’s inmost heart, saw the tragic lift of one of those tremendous emotions, which, by their very coming into a human soul, give it the majesty and the mystery of the divine.

“Telephone for Dr. Schulze,” she commanded; then, as Adelaide sped, she said tenderly to her husband:  “Where is the pain?  What can I do?”

But he did not answer.  And if he could have answered, what could she have done?  The pain was in his heart, was the burning agony of remorse for having done that which he still believed to be right, that which he now thought he would give his soul’s salvation for the chance to undo.  For, as the paralysis began to lock his body fast in its vise, the awful thought had for the first time come to him:  “When my children know what I have done they will hate me!  They will hate me all their lives.”

Dr. Schulze examined him.  “Somewhat sooner than I expected,” he muttered.

“How long will it last?” said Ellen.

“Some time—­several weeks—­months—­perhaps.”  He would let her learn gradually that the paralysis would not relax its grip until it had borne him into the eternal prison and had handed him over to the jailer who makes no deliveries.

CHAPTER VII

JILTED

Mrs. Ranger consented to a third girl, to do the additional heavy work; but a nurse—­no!  What had Hiram a wife for, and a daughter, and a son, if not to take care of him?  What kind of heartlessness was this, to talk of permitting a stranger to do the most sacred offices of love?  And only by being on the watch early and late did Adelaide and Arthur prevent her doing everything for him herself.

“Everybody, nowadays, has trained nurses in these cases,” said Dr. Schulze.  “I don’t think you ought to object to the expense.”

But the crafty taunt left her as indifferent as did the argument from what “everybody does.”

“I don’t make rules for others,” replied she.  “I only say that nobody shall touch Hiram but us of his own blood.  I won’t hear to it, and the children won’t hear to it.  They’re glad to have the chance to do a little something for him that has done everything for them.”