Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/139

 in the New World. In front of him, wearing white with a green silken shawl about—her shoulders, stood Jolie Stanwicke, his daughter.

A liveried negro servant had just placed a decanter and glasses upon the table and had withdrawn.

Lachlan, watching from the darkness without, saw that Stanwicke sat in a strangely hunched position in his chair, his head lolling forward on his chest. For some moments he sat thus without moving, his eyes apparently half-closed. Then he roused suddenly and with shaking hands filled a glass. As he lifted it from the table, the lace of his sleeve brushed against the other glass, overturning it so that it smashed to atoms on the floor. Instantly he broke out in a high-pitched, tremulous wail.

"See," he cried, his voice as shrill as a woman's. "See what all this has done to me. I am a wreck, a shell. I cannot pour wine for the shaking of my hands. And you stand there and there's no pity in you."

The girl moved a step nearer, resting her hand upon the table.

"Pity!" she said slowly in a low voice. "There is no room for pity."

He seemed not to hear her. At a gulp he drained his glass, filled another and drank that also. He cleared his throat and opened his lips to speak, but she cut him short.

"I have something to tell you," she said quickly, "and I must ask you to listen to me now. I do not