life--that unquenchable spring of belief in the mystery.
That was what it was, the divine mystery, the force that led through all
appearance to the real, through all false glitter to the light. It was a
heavenly vision, the possibility as she saw it: the rounded life, the
two bound in a mutual worship, carrying their full cup carefully to the
altar where they would make their vows. He saw how lesser desires could
be wiped out by one pure passion, how no price is too great to pay for
the soul's treasure, not so much the possession of it, but the guarding
it for all the uses of the world.

While he lay there, the scent of the pines in his nostrils, it seemed to
him that he was living through the progress of his completed life with
her. There was not only the overwhelming passion of it, but the intimate
communion of quiet days. She would turn to him for counsel and for
sustenance, as he would turn to her. This would be the interchange of
needs and kindnesses. There would be funny little queernesses of the day
to keep them laughing; and they would be kind, not forgetful in their
castle of content, but kind, the stronger that they had multiplied their
strength by union.

And then settled upon him again his wonder at the inexorability of
things, that a man could not escape the general laws because he willed
to live outside them. He was bound round by necessity. Merely because he
would not take a mate, he was not exempt from crying out for her. And as
the day went on and the vividness of his first high vision faded, his
mind went back to Peter and the incredible truth that Peter also knew he
could make her happy. The cloud of jealousy darkened again, and he met
earth pangs and strangled them. But as he slew them, more were born, and
lying there in the fern he hated his brother and his brother's body,
born to regnancy. MacLeod, too, appeared before his inward vision,
wholesome, well-equipped, riding the earth as Apollo drives the horses
of the sun. Him, too, he hated, and for Rose's sake longed again to put
him away with his own hands out of the air she breathed. Spent by his
passions, he lingered there in the coolness of the unheeding woods while
the afternoon gloomed into night.

* * * * *

Madam Fulton sat on the veranda, thinking sadly. She found herself
puzzled by one thing most of all. Several times a day she had asked
Billy Stark, "Do you really believe there's anything in that notion