“You have overreached yourself—­you, too, will go down in this carnage.  I shall pray God that you do—­my God who is over your god; my God and his.”  Her voice became calmer, but her phrases were broken by gasping pauses.  She spoke as though her God had commanded her to read this bitter indictment against her brother.

“Because he shrined his honor above your insatiable greed you undertook to doom him.  You have written a page ... into history ... a page full of horror ... you have made criminals of honest men ... and suicides of brave ones.  Now in the trail of your incendiary malice you cast his life—­” her voice fell in a tortured sob—­“the life ... he so bravely fought for there in the hills ... and after it you toss my heart.”

The financier moved a step forward and his lips opened, but the doctor laid a hand on his arm.  “You must leave her, sir,” he said quietly, but finally.  “She is in no condition to stand more of this.”

“How can I leave her like this?” remonstrated Hamilton and once more the physician raised his hand.  “In such a case the doctor must be obeyed—­unless—­” his own voice hardened—­“you are anxious to add even worse results to today’s work.”

Hamilton Burton turned.  “Do what you can,” he said.  “I will send Paul.”  So he left the place, passing between the employees of the bankrupt firm of Edwardes and Edwardes in the anterooms.

At his elbow followed young Bristoll, but when they had reached the ground floor the secretary halted his chief with an impetuous touch on the arm.

“It’s no use, sir—­we separate here,” he said passionately.  “I must give you my resignation, at once.”

At another time such an announcement would have been greeted by this imperious master with swift acceptance and quiet irony.  This day he had smitten his enemies and they had withered before his power.  Results had differed in no respect from the outlines of his preparations and yet so poignantly personal had been the recoil that he found himself, when his brain needed its most alert resourcefulness, inwardly admitting a new and strange sense of uncertainty—­almost of uneasiness.

Once before for a weak moment he had felt that flagging of confidence—­when Mary had left his house, but he had swiftly conquered it.  He would as summarily conquer its repetition.  His nerves were not such uncontrolled agents as to be shaken by the wild folly and accidents that grew out of weaker natures.  All battlefields leave black scars and pictures which are not pretty pictures.  To pause and surrender to brooding over these details is to clip one’s wings and dull one’s talons.  He forced a smile.

“As you please, Carl,” he said.  “Though I had made the mistake of counting on your loyalty as dependable.”

The young man answered with an effort.

“It’s a hard thing to do.  I haven’t just worked for the salary.  I have made a hero of you, and been very proud of even my small part in your career.  It was as though I were a staff officer to a Man of Destiny.”