, that is all. But still the account remains a
long one. You will have your lifetime to reckon with it, free from any
interference on my part; for, if I can help it, we shall never meet
again in this world--never.... And now, good-bye."

Without a gesture of farewell she turned and left him standing there, in
misery and bitterness, but in a thankfulness too, more for Ruth's sake
than his own. He raised his arms with a despairing motion, then let them
drop heavily to his side....

And then two strong hands caught his throat, a body pressed hard against
him, and he was borne backward--backward--to the cliff!

CHAPTER XX. AFTER THE STORM

I was sitting on the verandah, writing a letter to Belle Treherne. The
substantial peace of a mountain evening was on me. The air was clear,
and full of the scent of the pines and cedars, and the rumble of the
rapids came musically down the canon. I lifted my head and saw an eagle
sailing away to the snow-topped peak of Trinity, and then turned to
watch the orioles in the trees. The hour was delightful. It made me
feel how grave mere living is, how noble even the meanest of us becomes
sometimes--in those big moments when we think the world was built for
us. It is half egotism, half divinity; but why quarrel with it?

I was young, ambitious; and Love and I were at that moment the only
figures in the universe really deserving attention! I looked on down
a lane of cedars before me, seeing in imagination a long procession of
pleasant things; of--As I looked, another procession moved through the
creatures of my dreams, so that they shrank away timidly, then utterly,
and this new procession came on and on, until--I suddenly rose, and
started forward fearfully, to see--unhappy reality!--the body of Galt
Roscoe carried towards me.

Then a cold wind seemed to blow from the glacier above and killed all
the summer. A man whispered to me: "We found him at the bottom of the
ravine yonder. He'd fallen over, I suppose."

I felt his heart. "He is not dead, thank God!" I said.

"No, sir," said the other, "but he's all smashed." They brought him
in and laid him on his bed. I sent one of the party for the doctor at
Viking, and myself set to work, with what appliances I had, to deal with
the dreadful injuries. When the doctor came, together we made him into
the semblance of a man again. His face was but slightly injured, though
his head had received severe hurts. I think that I alone saw the ma