give you and me a special niche in the Hall
of Fame," he said.

A rather wan smile touched briefly Banneker's lips. "I believe that my
ambitions once reached even that far," he said.

The other reflected upon the implied tragedy of a life, so young, for
which ambition was already in the past tense, as he added:

"In the musical section. We've got our share in the nearest thing to
great music that has been produced in the America of our time. You and
I. Principally you."

Banneker made a quick gesture of denial.

"I don't know what you owe to Camilla Van Arsdale, but you've paid the
debt. There won't be much more to pay, Banneker."

Banneker looked up sharply.

"No." The visitor shook his graying head. "We've performed as near a
miracle as it is given to poor human power to perform. It can't last
much longer."

"How long?"

"A matter of weeks. Not more. Banneker, do you believe in a personal
immortality?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"I don't know, either. I was thinking.... If it were so; when she gets
across, what she will feel when she finds her man waiting for her. God!"
He lifted his face to the great trees that moved and murmured overhead.
"How that heart of hers has sung to him all these years!"

He lifted his voice and sent it rolling through the cathedral aisles of
the forest, in the superb finale of the last hymn.

"For even the purest delight may pall,
And power must fail, and the pride must fall
And the love of the dearest friends grow small--
But the glory of the Lord is all in all."

The great voice was lost in the sighing of the winds. They rode on,
thoughtful and speechless. When the physician turned to his companion
again, it was with a brisk change of manner.

"And now we'll consider you."

"Nothing to consider," declared Banneker.

"Is your professional judgment better than mine?" retorted the other.
"How much weight have you lost since you've been out here?"

"I don't know."

"Find out. Don't sleep very well, do you?"

"Not specially."

"What do you do at night when you can't sleep? Work?"

"No."

"Well?"

"Think."

The doctor uttered a non-professional monosyllable. "What will you do,"
he propounded, waving his arm back along the trail toward the Van
Arsdale camp, "when this little game of yours is played out?"

"God knows!" said Banneker. It suddenly struck him that life would be
blank, empty of interest or purpose, when Camilla Van Arsdale died, when
there was no