I say that I'd give a lot to undo what I've done?"

She only raised her hand to check him and ventured a faint smile of
reassurance. It was the smile that hurt Connor to the quick.

They left the ravine. They toiled slowly up the difficult trail, and
even when they had reached such an altitude that the floor of the valley
of the Garden was unrolling behind them the girl never once moved to
look back.

"So," thought Connor, "she'll go through the rest of her life with her
head down, watching the ground in front of her. And this is my work."

He was not a sentimentalist, but a lump was forming in his throat when,
at the very crest of the mountain, the girl turned suddenly in her
saddle and stopped the gray.

"Only makes it worse to stay here," muttered Connor. "Come on, Ruth."

But she seemed not to hear him, and there was something in her smile
that kept him from speaking again.

_CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE_

The Room of Silence had become to David Eden a chamber of horror. The
four chairs around him, which had hitherto seemed filled with the ghosts
of the four first masters of the Garden, were now empty to his
imagination. In this place where he had so often found unfailing
consolation, unfailing counsel, he was now burdened by the squat, heavy
walls, and the low ceiling. It was like a prison to him.

For all his certainty was gone. "You've made yourself your God," the
gambler had said. "Fear made the Garden of Eden, fear keeps the men in
it. Do you think the others stay for love of you?"

Benjamin had proved a sinner, no doubt, but there had been a ring of
conviction in his words that remained in the mind of David. How could he
tell that the man was not right? Certainly, now that he had once doubted
the wisdom of that silent Voice, the mystery was gone. The room was
empty; the holiness had departed from the Garden of Eden with the
departing of Ruth.

He found himself avoiding the thought of her, for whenever her image
rose before him it was torture.

He dared not even inquire into the depression which weighed down his
spirits, for he knew that the loss of the girl was the secret of it
all.

One thing at least was certain: the strong, calming voice which he had
so often heard in the Room of Silence, no longer dwelt there, and with
that in mind he rose and went into the patio.

In a corner, screened by a climbing vine, hung a large bell which had
only been rung four times in the history of the Garden o