"Blessed are the self-righteous," mused Farquaharson half aloud, "for they shall supply their own absolution." To himself he was saying, "The wretched old hellion!"

"And then you see, after all," she added with the martyr's sophistry, "in the fight for you, I'm only fighting for myself and in doing what I can for him I'm trying to be unselfish."

"Listen," the man spoke carefully, "that, too, is the goodness-gone-wrongness as you call it; the sheer perversion of a duty sense. If it were just myself to be thought of, perhaps I couldn't fight you on a point of conscience. But it isn't just me--not if you love me."

"Love you!" He felt the thrilled tremor that ran through her from head to foot, and that made her bosom heave stormily. The moon had sunk a little and the shadow in which they were standing had crawled onward so that on her head fell a gleam of pale light, kindling her eyes and touching her temples under the sooty shadows of her hair. Her lips were parted and her voice trembled with the solemnity of a vow, too sacred to be uttered without the fullest frankness. "In every way that I know how to love, I love you! Everything that a woman can be to a man I want to be to you and all that a woman can give to a man, I want to give to you."

It was he who trembled then and became unsteady with the intoxication of triumph.

"Then I'll fight for you, while I have breath, even if it means fighting with you."

Suddenly she caught at his arm with a spasmodic alarm, and he turned his head as the screeching whine of a window sounded in the stillness. The effort to raise it cautiously was indicated not by any noiselessness but by the long duration of the sound. Then a woman's head with hair in tight pigtails stood out against the pallid light of a bedroom lamp, turned low, and the whispered challenge came out to them. "Who's out there?"

"Ssh!" cautioned the girl, tensely. "It's I, Auntie. Don't wake Father."

Grudgingly the window creaked down and for seconds which lengthened themselves interminably to the anxious ears of the pair in the shadows, they waited with bated breath. Then Stuart whispered, "You must go to sleep now."

The rest of the far-spent night Stuart stood guard outside the house.

Once, a half hour after Conscience had gone in, her blind rose and she stood silhouetted against the lamp-light. The man stepped out of his shadow and raised a hand, and she waved back at him. Then the lamp went out, and he surrendered himself to thought and resolves--and mistakes.

This submission to the tyranny of weakness had gone too far. She must go away. He must take up the fight aggressively. He did not realize that he who was fighting for her sense of humor had lost his own. He did not foresee that he was preparing to throw the issue on dangerous ground, pitting his stubbornness against her stubbornness, and raising the old duel of temperaments to combat--the immemorial conflict between puritan and cavalier.

CHAPTER IX

Stuart Farquaharson had tempered a dignified strength with a gracious fortitude. He had endured slanderous charges and stood with the steadiness of a reef-light when Conscience was steering a storm ridden course, but the constant pressure on the dykes of his self-command had strained them until they might break at any moment and let the flood of passion swirl through with destructive power. He was being oppressed and seeing Conscience oppressed by a spirit which he regarded as viciously illiberal--and he accused Conscience, in his own mind, of blind obedience to a distorted sense of duty. Unconsciously he was seeking to coerce her into repudiating it by a form of argument in which the graciousness of his nature gave way to a domineering insistence.

Unconsciously, too, that form of attack aroused in her an unyielding quality of opposition.

When he saw her next after the mid-night meeting she had seemed more normally composed and he had seized upon the occasion to open his campaign. They had driven over and stopped the car at a point from which they could look out to sea, and though the summer vividness had died out of wave and sky and the waters had taken on a touch of a leaden grimness, there was still beauty in the picture.

For awhile they talked of unimportant things, but abruptly Stuart said: "Dearest, I told you that I meant to fight for you even if I had to fight with you. That's the hardest form in which the battle could come, but one can't always choose the conditions of war." He paused and, seeing that his eyes were troubled, Conscience smiled encouragingly.

"At least," she laughed, "I believe you will wage war on me humanely."

The man went on hurriedly. "I've been talking with the doctor. He says that your father's condition holds no immediate danger--danger of death, I mean. Unless he suffers another stroke, he may live for years."

The girl nodded her head. "Yes, I know," she said wearily, "and for him life only means continuation of suffering." She did not add that it meant the same for her and Stuart, looking steadily into her face, said with decision, "For awhile you must go away."

"I!" Her eyes widened with an incredulous expression as if she thought she had misunderstood, then she answered slowly and very gently, "You _know_ I can't do that, dear."

"I know that you must," he countered, and because he had keyed himself for this combat of wills he spoke more categorically than he realized.

"At first thought, of course, you would feel that you couldn't. But your ability to stand a long siege will depend on conserving your strength.

You are human and not indestructible."

She shook her head with a gentle stubbornness. "Stuart, dear, you're trying to make me do a thing you wouldn't do yourself. A sentry placed on duty can't go away until his watch is over--even if it's raw and gloomy where's he's stationed."

"No, but soldiers under intolerable stress are relieved and given breathing space whenever it's possible."

"Yes, whenever it's possible."

"It's possible, now, dearest, and perhaps it won't be later. You could visit some friend for a few weeks and come back the better able to carry on the siege. Otherwise you'll be crushed by the weight of the ordeal."

"Stuart," she began slowly, "who is there to take my place, even for a few weeks?"

"And the whole intolerable situation arises," he broke out with a sudden inflection of wrath, "from inert, thick-skulled bigotry. Thought processes that are moral cramps and mental dyspepsia threaten to ruin your entire life."

"Don't, dear--please!" She leaned toward him and spoke earnestly. "I know it's hard to endure without retort, but please don't make me listen to things like that about Father. It's bad enough without any more recriminations."

Then logic retreated from Stuart Farquaharson. He, the gracious and controlled, gave way to his first moment of ungenerous temper and retorted bitterly.

"Very well, but it seems you can listen to his abuse of me."

Conscience flinched as if lash-stung and for an instant indignation and anger kindled in her eyes only to die as instantly out of them, as she bit her lip. When she spoke it was in an even gentler voice. "You know why I listened to him, Stuart. You know that I didn't listen ... before his stroke. I didn't listen when I told him that if you went, I went, too, did I?"

The man's face paled and with a spasmodic gesture he covered it with his hands. "My God!" he exclaimed, "I don't think I've ever said such a damnably mean and caddish thing before--and to you!"

But Conscience bent over and drew his hands away from his face. "It wasn't you. It was just the strain. You could make allowances for me when I called you out to calm me in the middle of the night. I can make them, too. Neither of us is quite sane."

But having had that warning of Stuart's slipping control, Conscience kept locked in her own bosom certain fresh trials which discussion would have alleviated. She did not tell him how she spent sleepless nights devising plans to meet the grim insistence upon his banishment which she knew the morning would bring. But she felt that the comfort of a complete unburdening of her feelings had been curtailed and with a woman's genius for sacrifice she uncomplainingly assumed that added strain.

One afternoon Eben Tollman came out of the house, as she was walking alone under the bare trees of the driveway, and stopped, hat in hand, at her side.

"Conscience," he began thoughtfully, "Mr. Williams has just told me of his insistence that Mr. Farquaharson shall not only be denied the house, but sent away altogether. You must be carrying a pretty heavy load for young shoulders."

The girl stood regarding her father's counselor gravely. He had never appealed to her as a person inviting confidence, and she had thought of his mind as cut to the same austere pattern as the minister's own. Yet now his face wore an expression of kindliness and sympathy to which his manner gave corroboration. Possibly she had misjudged the man and lost his underlying qualities in her careless view of externals. Tollman seemed to expect no answer and went on slowly, "I tried to point out to your father the unwisdom of an insistence which must stir a spirit like yours to natural opposition. I suggested that under the circumstances it was scarcely fair."

"What did he say?" She put the inquiry with a level glance as if reserving her right to accept or reject his volunteered assistance.

"He could only see his own side. He must do his duty, however hard he found it."

Conscience remembered Stuart's warning that Tollman thought he loved her, and smiled to herself. This voluntary championing of another man's cause hardly seemed to comport with such a conception.

"I don't know what to do," she admitted wearily. "Obviously I can't make the promise he asks and no more can I let him fly into a rage that may kill him. I'm between the upper and nether mill-stones."

The man nodded with a grave and courteous comprehension.

"I hesitate to volunteer advice--and yet--" He came to a questioning halt.

"Yes," she prompted eagerly. "Please go on."

"I had thought," he continued, with the diffident manner of a man unaccustomed to proffering counsel before it was asked, "that, if you cared to use me, I might be of some help--as an intermediary of sorts."

"An intermediary?" she repeated. Then more impulsively, because she felt that her attitude had been wanting in graciousness, she added, "I know you're offering to do something very kind, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

"I think I am entirely in your father's confidence," he explained, "and because, on many subjects, we hold common opinions, I can discuss--even argue--matters with him without fear of antagonism or excitement to him.

Still I hope I am not too old to be in sympathy with your more youthful and more modern outlook on life. If at any time I can help, please call on me."