A strong man, a man in whom blood ran red, there leaped up in him for a moment a sudden and unreasoning rage at that thing which he had called fate.  He saw the unfairness of it all, the hopelessness of it, the cowardly subterfuge and trickery of life itself as it had played against him, and with tightly set lips and clenched hands he called mutely on God Almighty to play the game square.  Give him a chance!  Give him just one square deal, only one; let him see a way, let him fight a man’s fight with a ray of hope ahead!  In these red moments hope emblazoned itself before his eyes as a monstrous lie.  Bitterness rose in him until he was drunk with it, and blasphemy filled his heart.  Whichever way he turned, however hard he fought, there was no chance of winning.  From the day he killed Kirkstone the cards had been stacked against him, and they were stacked now and would be stacked until the end.  He had believed in God, he had believed in the inevitable ethics of the final reckoning of things, and he had believed strongly that an impersonal Something more powerful than man-made will was behind him in his struggles.  These beliefs were smashed now.  Toward them he felt the impulse of a maddened beast trampling hated things under foot.  They stood for lies—­treachery—­cheating—­yes, contemptible cheating!  It was impossible for him to win.  However he played, whichever way he turned, he must lose.  For he was Conniston, and she was Conniston’s sister, and must be to the end of time.

Faintly, beyond the door, he heard Mary Josephine singing.  Like a bit of steel drawn to a tension his normal self snapped back into place.  His readjustment came with a lurch, a subtle sort of shock.  His hands unclenched, the tense lines in his face relaxed, and because that God Almighty he had challenged had given to him an unquenchable humor, he saw another thing where only smirking ghouls and hypocrites had rent his brain with their fiendish exultations a moment before.  It was Conniston’s face, suave, smiling, dying, triumphant over life, and Conniston was saying, just as he had said up there in the cabin on the Barren, with death reaching out a hand for him, “It’s queer, old top, devilish queer—­and funny!”

Yes, it was funny if one looked at it right, and Keith found himself swinging back into his old view-point.  It was the hugest joke life had ever played on him.  His sister!  He could fancy Conniston twisting his mustaches, his cool eyes glimmering with silent laughter, looking on his predicament, and he could fancy Conniston saying:  “It’s funny, old top, devilish funny—­but it’ll be funnier still when some other man comes along and carries her off!”

And he, John Keith, would have to grin and bear it because he was her brother!

Mary Josephine was tapping at his door.

“Derwent Conniston,” she called frigidly, “there’s a female person on the telephone asking for you.  What shall I say?”