realize that I could only follow
my own best judgment."

"I haven't changed my mind not one particle," she exclaimed,
vehemently.

"But, Ruth----"

"I think you're throwing away good money, deliberately. That is, if
you really ever make any money on your project. You may lose
everything."

"I may not, also. But if I should, the father of the fellow sitting in
the car yonder waiting for you would be responsible. As for these
drops, Ruth, Gretzinger was wrong and I was right, and so they're
being built of concrete. Now please forget all about it."

"And that you refused my request, I suppose."

"Yes."

"Well, I can't do that; it's too much to ask." An angry gleam shot
from her eyes. "You might have thought more of me and less of
yourself. You put your old canal first and me second." With which she
swung about and marched off to the car, and it went away, rocking and
lurching down the uneven trail.

Lee stood looking after it. Her last words brought up the memory of
the occasion when she had playfully uttered the like, one night in
August, with the added inquiry, "What if you had to choose between
us?" Were things drifting to such an issue? Would she at last force
upon him that hard choice? He flung up a hand in a gesture of despair.
Some metamorphosis had occurred in her; she was not the simple and
loving Ruth to whom he had offered himself that day they picked
berries in the canon. Or was it that only now her real self was
revealed? Was it that she was capable of loving only selfishly? Did
she love him at all?

The questions bit like acid into his heart. And a new one, that
startled and dismayed his soul: Did he love her? Yes--the Ruth she yet
was. But he could never love the woman she seemed on the way to
become, breathing an exciting and unhealthy atmosphere, seeking purely
personal gain, indifferent to worthy objects, selfish, hard,
mercenary, worldly. No, that kind of Ruth would kill love.

He still stood there when Morgan, who had been on an errand to
headquarters, came galloping back on his way to the dam.

"Accident down below," he said. "Man hurt in the mixer. Arm crushed."

Bryant jerked his head about to look at the drop two hundred yards
farther down the ridge. He saw the workmen grouped together. The huge
cylindrical machine was motionless.

"I'll see," he exclaimed, hurrying to his runabout.

He drove recklessly to where the injured man lay, helped lift him into
the car, and bidding the