would certainly preclude it.
How can you be an author and not understand that?"

"I am not an author, I am sorry to say," he objected. "I have written
but the one book, and I have never been able to find a publisher for
it."

"But you are not going to give up?"

"No; I am going to rewrite the book and try again--and yet again, if
needful. It is my message to mankind, and I mean to deliver it."

"Bravo!" she applauded, clapping her hands in a little burst of
enthusiasm which, if it were not real, was at least an excellent
simulation. "It is only the weak ones who say, 'I hope.' For the truly
strong hearts there is only the one battle-cry, 'I will!' When you get
blue and discouraged you must come to me and let me cheer you. Cheering
people is _my_ mission, if I have any."

Griswold's pale face flushed and the blood sang liltingly in his veins.
He wondered if she had been tempted to read the manuscript of the book
while he was fighting his way back to consciousness and life. If they
had been alone together, he would have asked her. The bare possibility
set all the springs of the author's vanity upbubbling within him. There
and then he promised himself that she should hear the rewriting of the
book, chapter by chapter. But what he said was out of a deeper, and
worthier, underthought.

"You have many missions, Miss Margery: some of them you choose, and some
are chosen for you."

"No," she denied; "nobody has ever chosen for me."

"That may be true, without making me a false prophet. Sometimes when we
think we are choosing for ourselves, chance chooses for us; oftener than
not, I believe."

She turned on him quickly, and for a single swiftly passing instant the
velvety eyes were deep wells of soberness with an indefinable underdepth
of sorrow in them. Griswold had a sudden conviction that for the first
time in his knowing of her he was looking into the soul of the real
Margery Grierson.

"What you call 'chance' may possibly have a bigger and better name," she
said, gravely. "Had you ever thought of that?"

"Give it any name you please, so long as you admit that it is something
beyond our control," he conceded.

As had happened more than once before, she seemed to be able to read his
inmost thought.

"You are thinking of the chain of incidents that brought you here? It is
only the details that have 'happened.' You meant to come to Wahaska;
you were carrying out a definite purpose of your own that night in St.