elieving it, and thinking what a
wonderful man you are starting out to be; but in the morning find my
ideals shattered, and on the ash heap!"

"You are so worldly, then?" he smiled.

But she had arisen and now stood at the entrance of the path, looking
slightly over her shoulder and ignoring his question with another:

"You say things are really hurrying?"

"Dulany is buying the necessary land in record time," he answered.

"But," she hesitated, pouting just a little, "that implies no work of
your own! Still, I suppose I should be thankful for whatever we receive.
And, oh, Brent," she now turned and looked seriously up at him, "if you
would only stop this wretched drinking! Tell me, why do you? What call,
or what cause, makes you? Is it to drug the mind into some sort of mock
rest, or the body into sleep, or the soul--ah, Brent, what does the soul
do when it is stupefied? The pity of it flares up in me like a great
scorching flame!"

He opened his lips, but could not speak. The words, their sincerity,
sympathy, and wonderfully strange appeal, came like an unfelt air; for a
second time setting a-tremble the tiny taper flame in that reliquary of
which he had told her. Another moment she looked appealingly up at him,
then turned toward the house.

"Jane!" His voice, hoarse and vibrating, held her where she stood. She
dared not see the face which her senses said had been driven white by
some tremendous feeling. So she waited, listening.

The smell of cedar buds was in the air about them; and wafted out on
this, as though it might have been just now brought up from the musty
depths of some old cedar chest, they heard the thin voice of Miss Liz
scolding one of the servants. Otherwise, the morning seemed to have no
life except the lazy drone of insects.

Again she started slowly to the house; but this time he did not speak,
and only watched until she disappeared.

CHAPTER XXII

TWO PLANS

When Colonel May returned he was tired. He paused at the library door,
for a moment watching the bent head of the indomitable student, now
oblivious to everything except the page before him, hesitated, and then
passed on in search of Brent. He seemed to appreciate the uselessness of
calling the mountaineer who was in a realm too remote for human
interference. The Colonel was not the first that day to look in, pause,
and then pass on.

He found the young engineer out under the trees, deep in the
contemplation of the sk