it through to the
end," her mother whispered, somewhat fearfully, as though frightened
by the admission. "I've--I've seen it coming with you, and I can't
help feeling that perhaps this is only the beginning."

"Oh, mother, if you should!" cried the girl. "That would do it--that
would open his eyes. He'd see then that there is something in the
world besides wheat and cows, after all. You know, I think he's in a
kind of trance. He's mesmerized by wheat. It was so necessary in
those first years, when he was fighting against actual starvation,
that it has become a kind of mania. Nothing short of some great shock
will bring him out of it. If you would come--if you would only come
too, things would be different."

"But I couldn't do that," said the mother, after a silence, and as
though speaking with herself. "He's my husband, Beulah. You don't
understand."

They talked then, in secret, sorrowful confidence, of many things,
things for their ears only, and the grey was returning in the
northern sky when the girl again left the house, and this time swung
resolutely down the road that led to Plainville. Her heart was now at
rest, even at peace. In the sacred communion of that last hour she
had come to see something of her mother's problem and sacrifice; and
although she was going out into the world alone, she felt that
somewhere, some time, was a solution that would reunite the broken
family and tune their varying chords in harmony. The North star shone
very brightly amid the myriad finer points of light that filled the
heavens. She raised her face to the cold rays. The stars had always a
strange fascination for her. Their illimitable distances, their
infinite number, their ordered procession--all spelled to her a
Purpose--a Purpose that was bigger than wheat and land and money, a
Purpose that was life, the life for which she groped vaguely but
bravely in the darkness.

From an unhappy sleep in his room upstairs John Harris was awakened
by the whine of the cream separator. A quiet smile stole across his
strong, still handsome face. "Beulah has decided to be sensible," he
whispered to himself.

***

In the morning the Harris household was early as usual. The farmer
and his son gave their attention to the horses while Mary prepared
breakfast, and it was not until they were seated at the table that
Harris noticed his daughter's absence.

"Where's Beulah?" he demanded.

"I don't know," his wife replied.

"Ain't sh