he air was cooling off and
the rain was falling more steadily, without the gusts and splatters
which marked the storm in its early stages. And as he looked out over
the black valley, lighted again and again by the glare of heaven's
artillery, Grant became conscious of a deep, mysterious sense of peace.
It was as though his soul, like the elements about him, caught in a
paroxysm of elemental passion, had been swept clean and pure in the fire
of its own upheaval.

"What little incidents turn our lives!" he thought. "That boy; in some
strange way he has been the means of bringing me to see things as they
are--which not even Linder could do. The mind has to be fertilized for
the thought, or it can't think it. He brought the necessary influence to
bear. It was like the night at Murdoch's house, the night when the Big
Idea was born. Surely I owe that to Murdoch, and his wife, and Phyllis
Bruce."

The name of Phyllis Bruce came to him with almost a shock. He had been
so occupied with his farm and with Zen that he had thought but little of
her of late. As he turned the matter over in his mind now he felt that
he had used Phyllis rather shabbily. He recalled having told Murdoch to
send for her, but that was purely a business transaction. Yet he felt
that he had never entirely forgotten her, and he was surprised to find
how tenderly the memory of her welled up within him. Zen's vision had
been clearer than his; she had recognized in Phyllis Bruce a party to
his life's drama. "The second choice may be really the first," she had
said.

Grant lit a cigar and sat down to smoke and think. The matter of Phyllis
needed prompt settlement. It afforded a means to burn his bridges
behind him, and Grant felt that it would be just as well to cut off all
possibility of retreat. Fortunately the situation was one that could be
explained--to Phyllis. He had come out West again to be sure of himself;
he was sure now; would she be his wife? He had never thought that line
out to a conclusion before, but now it proved a subject very delightful
to contemplate.

He had told himself, back in those days in the East, that it would not
be fair to marry Phyllis Bruce while his heart was another's. He had
believed that then; now he knew the real reason was that he had allowed
himself to hope, against all reason, that Zen Transley might yet be his.
He had harbored an unworthy desire, and called it a virtue. Well--the
die was cast. He had definitely given