am, utter silence.

Peter strode forth, bathed himself in the moonlight and drank deep of
the airs of the forest. America! He had chosen! Her youth called to his.
He wanted to forget everything that had gone before, the horrors through
which he had passed, both physical and spiritual,--the dying struggles
of the senile nation, born in intolerance, grown in ignorance and
stupidity which, with a mad gesture, had cast him forth with a curse. He
had doffed the empty prerogatives of blood and station and left them in
the mire and blood. The soul of Russia was dead and he had thought that
his own had died with hers, but from the dead thing a new soul might
germinate as it had now germinated in him. He had been born again.
_Novaya Jezn!_ The New Life! He had found it.

He listened intently as though for its heartbeats, his face turned up
toward the silent pines. For a long while he stood so and then went
indoors and sat at the old piano playing softly.

CHAPTER V

NEW ELEMENTS

Some of the men on guard in the middle watch reported that they had
heard what seemed to be the sounds of music very far away in the woods
and were disturbed at the trick their ears had played upon them. But
Peter didn't tell them the truth. If listening for the notes of a piano
would keep them awake, listen they should. He slept until noon and then
went to the house for orders.

Morning seemed to make a difference in the point of view. If the moon
had made the night lovely, the sun brought with it the promise of every
good thing. The walk through the woods to Black Rock House was a joy,
very slightly alleviated by the poor condition of the trees under which
Peter passed. It was primeval forest even here, with valuable trees
stunted and poor ones vastly overgrown according to nature's law which
provides for the survival of the fittest. This was the law too, which
was to be applied to Peter. Would he grow straight and true in this
foreign soil or gnarled and misshapen like the cedars and the maples
that he saw? Yes. He would grow and straight ... straight.

Optimism seemed to be the order of the new day. At the house he found
that his employer had put on a clean shirt and was freshly shaven. The
windows of the room were opened wide to the sunlight which streamed into
the room, revealing its darkest corners. McGuire himself seemed to have
responded to the effulgence of the sun and the balmy air which swept
across his table. His manner was