uilty_.

What was it all worth? Why work? Why fight? Why dream? Why anything?
when at the end and the beginning of all things there stood that wall
with the word written across it. Guilty--guilty as Rafe Gadbeau. And
Ruth Lansing--!

A flash of sudden insight caught him and held him in its glaring
light. He had been doing all this work. He had built this home. He had
fought the roughest timber-jacks and the high hills and the raging
winter for money. He had dreamt and laboured on his dreams and built
them higher. Why? For Ruth Lansing.

He had fought the thought of her. He had put her out of his mind. He
had said that she had failed him in need. He had even, in the blackest
time of the night, called her liar. He had forgotten her, he said.

Now he knew that not for an instant had she been out of his mind.
Every stroke of work had been for her. She had stood at the top of the
high path of every struggling dream.

Between him and her now rose that grey wall with the one word written
on it. Was that what they had meant that day there in the court, she
and the Bishop? Had they not lied, after all? Was there some sort of
uncanny truth or insight or hidden justice in that secret confessional
of theirs that revealed the deep, the real, the everlasting truth,
while it hid the momentary, accidental truth of mere words? In effect,
they had said that he was guilty. And he _was_ guilty!

What was that the Bishop had said when he had asked for truth that day
on the railroad line? "Sooner or later we have to learn that there is
something bigger than we are." Was this what it meant? Was this the
thing bigger than he was? The thing that had seen through him, had
looked down into his heart, had measured him; was this the thing that
was bigger than he?

He was whirled about in a confusing, distorting maze of imagination,
misinformation, and some unreadable facts.

He was a guilty man. Ruth Lansing knew that he was guilty. That was
why she had acted as she had. He would go to her. He would--! But what
was the use? She would not talk to him about this. She would merely
deny, as she had done before, that she knew anything at all. What
could he do? Where could he turn? They, he and Ruth, could never speak
of that thing. They could never come to any understanding of anything.
This thing, this wall--with that word written on it--would stand
between them forever; this wall of guilt and the secret that was
sealed behind her lips. Certa