summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/20615-h/20615-h.htm
blob: caf6a7ee5fe16efe797cbaf59969d28259585ae0 (plain) 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613
4614
4615
4616
4617
4618
4619
4620
4621
4622
4623
4624
4625
4626
4627
4628
4629
4630
4631
4632
4633
4634
4635
4636
4637
4638
4639
4640
4641
4642
4643
4644
4645
4646
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654
4655
4656
4657
4658
4659
4660
4661
4662
4663
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673
4674
4675
4676
4677
4678
4679
4680
4681
4682
4683
4684
4685
4686
4687
4688
4689
4690
4691
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699
4700
4701
4702
4703
4704
4705
4706
4707
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717
4718
4719
4720
4721
4722
4723
4724
4725
4726
4727
4728
4729
4730
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740
4741
4742
4743
4744
4745
4746
4747
4748
4749
4750
4751
4752
4753
4754
4755
4756
4757
4758
4759

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Master-Knot of Human Fate, by Ellis Meredith</title>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">

body
{
margin: 3% 15%;
}

h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { text-align:center; }
a { text-decoration:none; }
p { margin: .75em 0 0; font-size: 1em; }
pre { font-family:serif; }

.center {width:45%;  margin:0 auto; }
.smcap { font-variant:small-caps; }

#title-page
{
font-size: x-large;
font-weight: bold;
font-family: serif;
}

.byline
{
text-align: center;
font-size: .95em;
}
pre.poem
{
width:50%;
margin:10% 0 0 25%;
font-size: large;
}

.publisher
{
text-align: center;
margin:20% 0 0;
font-size: large;
}

#verso
{
margin:20% 0;
text-align:center;
}

ul.toc
{
list-style-type: none;
position: relative;
width:100%;
font-size:1.10em;
margin:0 0 25% 0;
}

span.ralign
{
position:absolute;
right:0;
top:auto;
}

.pagenum
{
visibility: hidden;
position: absolute;
right: 2%;
font-size: smaller;
font-style:normal;
font-variant:normal;
font-weight:normal;
}

.chapterhead
{
margin: 3em 0 3em 0;
font-style: italic;
}
.epigram
{
width:25%;
margin: 0 0 0 15%;
}

    hr.full { width: 100%;
              margin-top: 3em;
              margin-bottom: 0em;
              margin-left: auto;
              margin-right: auto;
              height: 4px;
              border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */
              border-style: solid;
              border-color: #000000;
              clear: both; }
    pre.pg   {font-family: courier, serif;
              font-size: 85%;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Master-Knot of Human Fate, by Ellis
Meredith</h1>
<pre class="pg">
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
<p>Title: The Master-Knot of Human Fate</p>
<p>Author: Ellis Meredith</p>
<p>Release Date: February 17, 2007  [eBook #20615]</p>
<p>Language: English</p>
<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE***</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>E-text prepared by V. L. Simpson<br />
    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net/c/">http://www.pgdp.net/c/</a>)<br />
    from digital material generously made available by<br />
    Internet Archive/American Libraries<br />
    (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/americana">http://www.archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #ccccff;">
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">
      Note:
    </td>
    <td>
      Images of the original pages are available through
	  Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
      <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/masterknotofhuman00mererich">
      http://www.archive.org/details/masterknotofhuman00mererich</a>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<hr class="full">
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>

<h1>The Master-Knot of Human Fate</h1>

<div id="title-page">
<pre class="byline center">
By

Ellis Meredith
</pre>

<pre class="poem">
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
  And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.

<span class="smcap">Omar Khayyám</span>
</pre>


<pre class="publisher">
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company

1901
</pre>
</div><!-- end #title-page -->

<pre id="verso">
<i>Copyright</i>, <i>1901</i>,
<span class="smcap">By Little, Brown, and Company</span>.

<i>All rights reserved.</i>





UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON
AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
</pre><!-- end #verso -->

<pre class="epigram" style="margin-bottom:20%;">
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
  And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.


Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
  Would not we shatter it to bits&#8212;and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

<span class="smcap">Omar Khayyám</span>
</pre>


<h2 class="toc-header">Table of Contents</h2>

<div class="center">
<ul class="toc">
<li>Chapter I<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterI">1</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter II<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterII">29</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter III<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterIII">43</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter IV<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterIV">59</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter V<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterV">77</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter VI<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterVI">89</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter VII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterVII">101</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter VIII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterVIII">117</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter IX<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterIX">127</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter X<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterX">143</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XI<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXI">151</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXII">159</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XIII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXIII">171</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XIV<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXIV">185</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XV<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXV">199</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XVI<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXVI">209</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XVII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXVII">225</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XVIII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXVIII">239</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XIX<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXIX">255</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XX<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXX">269</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XXI<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXXI">283</a></span></li>
<li>Chapter XXII<span class="ralign"><a href="#chapterXXII">297</a></span></li>
</ul>
</div>

<p class="pagenum">&#160;[pg. 1]</p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterI">
<h2>I</h2>
<pre class="epigram">
To-night God knows what things shall tide,
    The Earth is racked and faint&#8212;
Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed;
And we, who from the Earth were made.
    Thrill with our Mother's pain.

<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span>
</pre>
</div><!-- end .chapterhead -->


<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 2]</span></p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 3]</span></p>
<p>Along one of the most precipitous of the many Rocky Mountain trails
a man and a woman climbed slowly one spring morning. The air was cold,
and farther up the mountains little patches of snow lay here and there
in the hollows. Two or three miles below them nestled one of the most
famous pleasure resorts of the entire region. Three or four times as
distant lay the nearest town of any importance. Over the plain and
through the clear atmosphere it looked like a bird's-eye-view map
rather than an actual town. Far away to the left, gorgeous in coloring
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 4]</span>and grotesque in outline, could be
seen the odd figures of many strangely piled rocks.</p>


<p>The two pedestrians stopped now and then to rest and look away over
the matchless scene and take in its wonderful beauty. The woman was
tall and slender, with a superb carriage. Even on that steep ascent
she moved with the grace and freedom of one who has entire command of
her body. She was well gowned also for such an excursion. Her short,
green cloth skirt did not impede her movements, and high, stout shoes
gave her firm footing. She had removed her jacket, and in her bright
pink silk blouse and abbreviated petticoat, with the glow of the
morning on her usually pale face, she looked almost girlish; but her
face was not that of girlhood. It was without lines, and the heavy
masses of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 5]</span>her golden-brown hair
were quite unstreaked with silver; but her white forehead was serene
with the calmness that follows overcoming, and her dark gray eyes saw
the world shorn of its illusions. In her there were, or had been,
unrealized capacities for life in all its height and depth and
breadth. In studying her one became vaguely aware that, having missed
these things, she had found a fourth dimension which supplied the
loss.</p>

<p>Her companion was younger by several years, and so much taller that
she seemed almost small in comparison. In his eyes there danced and
shone the light of truth and courage and hope, and he walked with the
buoyancy of joy and youth. Israfil, Antinous, Apollo,&#8212;he might
have stood as the model for any of them, or for a fit representation
of the words of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 6]</span>the wise man,
"Rejoice, oh, young man, in thy youth, and let thine heart cheer thee
in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart."</p>

<p>The relation between the two was problematic. Certainly there was
no question of love on either side. Equally certainly there existed
between them a rare and exquisite camaraderie, a perfect comprehension
that often made words superfluous. A look sufficed.</p>

<p>They toiled up the steep, narrow path until they reached a wide
trail, a carriage road that had been laid out and abandoned. It swept
around the mountain-side, miles above the little city on the plain,
and terminated suddenly at an immense gateway of stone. Here the
mountain had been torn asunder, and two palisades of gray-green rock
rose grim and terrible for <span class="pagenum">[pg.
7]</span>hundreds of feet, while between them, dashing over boulders
and trees and the impedimenta of ages, a little stream rushed along in
the eternal night at their base. Far away to the west, range upon
range piled themselves against the intense blue sky. Beyond a rustic
gate, standing across the path that narrowed to a few feet before the
wall of stone, a park, sparkling and green in the sunlight, was
visible. They stopped and regarded the two gateways,&#8212;one the
work of nature, the other the feeble counterfeit of man,&#8212;and
then swinging open the creaking wooden affair, passed into the
peaceful valley. A few yards away stood a small log cabin, but the
chimney was smokeless, and though the chickens clucked in the yard,
and a collie lay on the doorstep, it seemed desolate and deserted.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 8]</span>Passing along an almost
invisible trail, they found themselves in the wildest and most remote
part of that wild and remote region. They saw a few stray animals, but
no human beings. This was one of the few places where mining was not a
universal pursuit, and it was too early to do much in the few mines
that did exist. There are entire sections in the Rockies that are
deserted for more than half the year, and this was one of them. That
day there was no one at the signal station. The keeper had gone down
to the valley for fresh stores, and to learn something of the terrific
disturbances that were said to be threatening the entire Eastern coast
with annihilation. Perhaps the owners of the log cabin had made a
similar pilgrimage.</p>

<p>The scene was flooded with moonlight when the travellers passed the
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 9]</span>gate on their homeward way, and
sat down on a boulder a few yards without the frowning portal. The
night was cold, and the woman had put on her jacket, and sunk her
numbed fingers in its pockets. In spite of her weariness she was
troubled and restless, and turning looked first at the beetling crags
back of them, then away over the plain at the twinkling lights of the
town below. They heard indistinctly the sounds of bells ringing
wildly, and overhead flocks of birds circled and called with shrill,
uncanny voices. Yet the moonlight was so bright that they saw each
other as plainly as if it were day, and its placid radiance seemed
strangely at variance with the disturbed wild-fowl, and certain weird
and fitful sounds that seemed to be sighed forth from the bosom of the
earth.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 10]</span>"It is a pity," she said,
"that we cannot pass through this gateway into paradise without
descending to earth again."</p>

<p>"I don't believe you are half as tired of life as you say," he
answered with an impatient movement of his head. "You may not shrink
from death as I do, or enjoy life so keenly, but isn't it a good thing
to be alive to-night? Isn't it fine to be a mile or so above the rest
of humanity and the deadly conventionalities? Aren't you glad you
came?"</p>

<p>She did not answer, but presently said dreamily, "Suppose that
plain was the sea."</p>

<p>"It isn't hard to suppose," he answered. "I have seen the Pacific
when it looked just so."</p>

<p>"Oh, no," she said quickly. "Nothing is like the sea but itself.
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 11]</span>You will never persuade me that I
love the mountains so well. And the plains,&#8212;just imagine if all
that gray green silver were gray blue, with here and there a gathering
crest of foam, racing to break in spray about these
mountains&#8212;"</p>

<p>"Why, look," he said, drawing her a little to one side, "there is
your liquid blue, with its white crest moving toward us. Could the
real sea look more wonderful than that? It is blotting out everything.
Now it recedes,&#8212;was it not real?"</p>

<p>She started to her feet. "This is a very strange night," she said
irrelevantly, in a rather strained voice. "Listen,&#8212;and see how
many birds are flying about us; I never saw them fly so at night. What
does it mean?"</p>

<p>They stood together, looking at each other with startled faces. The
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 12]</span>whole mountain, all the
mountains, seemed to be alive and trembling under them. Overhead
thousands of birds wheeled and screamed with terror in their mingled
outcries. The little creeping things scuttled away up the mountain.
The silver-blue wave widened and spread over the plain from north to
south, and the air was full of a dull, terrible roar, as if the
fountains of the great deep had broken up, and a thousand
white-crested waves rushed toward the hapless city before them. They
covered it, and with a wild jangle of bells, faintly audible over the
tumult, it sank out of sight, all the gleaming, dancing lights
disappearing in an instant. The white crests came on and broke about
the mountains, and receded and came on again with a deafening roar.
Then the crust of the earth between the <span class="pagenum">[pg.
13]</span>mountain range and the spot where the city had been, seemed
to crack like a bit of dried orange peel, and the flood rushed over
the abyss, and there arose a blinding steam that hid the whole scene
below, and ascending circled the mountain peaks in mist.</p>

<p>All about them on the mountain-side rose the cries of terrified
wild things, and along the narrow pathway into the park a herd of
cattle and horses rushed and disappeared among the aspens that
trembled as never before. The collie, scenting their presence, came
and crouched whining at their feet, and a bird fell exhausted into the
woman's arms. She closed her hands over it, unconsciously giving it
the protection none could give them, and in the fog moved toward the
figure of her companion. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 14]</span>His arm
closed about her convulsively.</p>

<p>"Shall we go farther up the mountain?" he asked.</p>

<p>"'If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now,'" she answered, insensibly finding it easier to use another's
words than to coin phrases while holding death-watch over a
continent.</p>

<p>They sat down on the boulder. After what seemed like countless
hours, she said, "I wonder how long we have been here. Perhaps it is
years."</p>

<p>He looked at his watch. "I do not know whether we are in time or
eternity," he answered simply. "It is nearly four o'clock by this
watch."</p>

<p>Through the dense vapor they saw the sun rise, red and sullen, but
the mist was so impenetrable that they dared not move about. The day
and <span class="pagenum">[pg. 15]</span>night passed, almost without
their knowledge, and the second morning found them, as the first, by
the great boulder. The wind rose with the sun, and when it blew aside
the veil of mist, far as the eye could reach, there rolled a sea,
white-capped, turbulent, fretful, as if unwilling to leave a single
peak to tower above its lordly dominion.</p>

<p>The man and woman followed the collie to the cabin, and there found
some food, then they retraced their way until they could look down
over the valley where the town had slept. Nothing was left. There was
not even a prospector's cabin. The shock which had succeeded the first
wild dash had been volcanic. The very cañons looked strange, and
though they called again and again there came no answer.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 16]</span>"Come," the man said
imperiously. "Let us go to the Peak. There must be some one
there."</p>

<p>They reached the signal station late in the afternoon; no one was
there. Looking down from that awful eminence, they saw on the other
side of the range the same desolation, the same watery waste. They
seemed to be on an island, alone on a wide, wide sea. Nowhere curled a
friendly wreath of smoke; nowhere was there sound of any human
thing.</p>

<p>They went wearily back. There was nowhere else to go. If the
gateway had been awful in its solitude, the Peak was still more
desolate. There was nothing living there, except themselves and the
dog that followed closely at their heels, making no excursions of its
own. The hour was wearing toward midnight when they sank
down <span class="pagenum">[pg. 17]</span>by the boulder once more to
watch the darkness disappear, and wait for they knew not what. The man
built a huge fire, so that if any other waifs had been left by this
wreck of a world they might see the beacon, and reply in some fashion.
They did not talk, except now and then, in a half whisper, they gave
monosyllabic queries and replies. The shock that had obliterated a
continent seemed to deprive them of all active use of their senses.
They moved only in circles, returning always to the place from which
they had watched the cataclysm.</p>

<p>It was almost sundown when, with a superhuman effort, they again
entered the sunny, beautiful park. The air was balmy, and there all
remained quite as before. In front of the cabin stood an Alderney; as
they approached her, she lowed uneasily. The
woman <span class="pagenum">[pg. 18]</span>looked up, and then spoke
aloud with the quick sympathy that had always been her greatest
attraction. She seemed to understand so readily, whether it was a
man's head, a woman's heart, or an animal's wants.</p>

<p>"She needs to be milked," she said, and pushing open the door she
entered the cabin. There were two rooms, the farther of which was
evidently a bedroom. There was a large fireplace at one end of the
main room. At one side of it was a primitive dresser, with such
utensils and china as the place afforded; on the other were some
miner's implements and a shovel. There was a small table and beside it
were placed two chairs. There was a rocker by the one window, and a
pot of geraniums on the sill; forming a kind of window seat was a long
seaman's chest. At the other end of the <span class="pagenum">[pg.
19]</span>room there was a desk covered with green oilcloth, and above
it was a shelf containing some books and a clock.</p>

<p>The woman took off her hat and jacket and brushed back her hair,
then turning back her sleeves went outdoors again. Under the rude
porch on a slab table stood a number of buckets, and there was a stool
by the door. She took a bucket and the stool and walked away a few
paces, the Alderney following. As she began milking she looked over
her shoulder at the man watching her and said, "Won't you build a
fire?"</p>

<p>He gathered some wood and went into the cabin. She threw out the
first pint or so of milk, then finished milking and strained the
foaming contents of her pail into some crocks left sunning by the
door, and went into the house. She found some
corn<span class="pagenum">[pg. 20]</span>meal and salt, and deftly
mixed the dough, and arranging the shovel in the hot ashes, set her
hoe-cake to bake. In the mean time the man had brought water from the
brook, and as the woman swung the crane over the blaze, he filled the
iron kettle hanging therefrom. There was some sour milk, and by a
mysterious process she converted it into Dutch cheese. There was some
butter and a few eggs, and she found a white cloth and spread the
table with the few poor dishes, placing the geranium in the centre. As
the water steamed and boiled, she caught up a tin canister.</p>

<p>"See," she said with forced gayety; "let us eat, drink, and be
merry, for there is just enough tea in the world for two people to
drink once!"</p>

<p>She made the beverage and poured it into the thick cups, and
breaking the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 21]</span>yellow pone and
piling it on a platter, they sat down to the strangest meal they had
ever known.</p>

<p>The man watched her with fascinated eyes. He had never before seen
her do anything for herself, yet she presided over the simple meal she
had prepared as graciously as over the course dinners of her chef. How
should she know how to make hoe-cake?</p>

<p>All through the singular feast the sparkle and play of her fancy
kept them in hysterical laughter. Afterwards, as she cleared away, the
same wild mood possessed her. The man wondered if her mind was going
with all else; but as she hung up the towel, her humor changed, and
she ran out of the cabin into the dusk as if she could not bear the
simple, homely tasks in a homeless world, the firelight and the bounds
of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 22]</span>a dwelling when doom must be
at hand. The man put a fresh log on the fire, and covered the coals
with ashes. He would have preferred to remain there, but he knew why
she was hurrying back to the mountain-side, and he took her coat and
followed her. She was standing by the boulder, looking out over the
waters with a despair on her face that made him groan. It was so like
what he felt in his heart. She pointed weakly toward the water, but
her lips formed no words.</p>

<p>"Yes," he answered, "it was not a dream."</p>

<p>Dawn found them still sitting by the boulder. The man shook her
half roughly.</p>

<p>"Come," he said, "let us go back to the cabin."</p>

<p>"No," she answered. "I cannot <span class="pagenum">[pg.
23]</span>believe it; we are both mad. We are dreaming the same mad
dream; let us go down, and when we feel the spray on our faces, and
taste the brine, it will be time enough to believe."</p>

<p>She began the descent with reckless rapidity, and he followed,
checking and holding her back. The roar of the surf grew momentarily
louder, but though she looked at him with wild, grieved eyes, she went
on. A monster wave dashed up over the rocks and wet them to the skin.
She flung out her arms, and would have fallen headlong into the
greedy, crawling water, but he caught her and made his way back. The
hot, bitter tears on her face brought her to herself, and with one
great sob she broke down, clinging to him and crying till from sheer
exhaustion she fell asleep.</p>

<p>He carried her back to the cottage and <span class="pagenum">[pg.
24]</span>laid her gently on the bed in the tiny room. Her hair was
falling about her, and he removed her dusty shoes, and covered her
over as if she had been a child. Then he went out into the sunlight
and sat down on the doorstep and tried to grasp the situation.</p>

<p>He had been a very ambitious man, and she had been as ambitious for
him as he was for himself; that had been the main bond of union. He
was to have made a great place in the world: the applause of listening
senates was to have been his; wealth, fame, position, all the
possibilities of life were gone; nothing but barely life itself
remained. A living might be wrung from nature, but for
ambition,&#8212;what? Surely somewhere on earth there were other human
beings; the destruction, if irreparable, was not universal. Sooner or
later some hardy sailor would find <span class="pagenum">[pg.
25]</span>the surviving peaks of this new Atlantis. At least, if the
woman within was not his world, he was thankful that no one else was;
and having looked the grim truth in the face, he too slept.</p>

<p>It was long past noon when the dog wakened him, and he started to
his feet, determined that, having lost all else, they should keep
their sound, clear brains. He walked about the park, which contained
perhaps five hundred acres. There were half a dozen cows, as many
horses, some burros, and a few chickens. There was a rude stable and a
few farm implements. There was a large tunnel in the mountain-side,
and some mining machinery lying about its entrance. The dog, seeming
to realize some of the responsibilities of life, herded the cattle and
drove them toward the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 26]</span>cabin. When
they reached it, she was standing in the doorway. She had made her
toilet, and looked fresh and calm.</p>

<p>"These are our flocks and our herds," he said in greeting. "What
shall we call them?"</p>

<p>She smiled rather wanly. "Wasn't it Adam who named the animals? You
shall have that honor."</p>

<p>"Very well," he answered; "but if this is the garden, there is an
angel with a flaming sword at the gateway. Do not pass it again. Our
life is here, here,&#8212;do you understand? We must give ourselves
time to get used to it, time to realize that we are alive. We must be
very patient, for whatever has befallen us, whether we are in the body
or out of it, this through which we have passed is a miracle, and only
time can tell if it is more. Do not <span class="pagenum">[pg.
27]</span>look upon the change again, at least not now. You will stay
here, and we will work together, and be content for awhile?"</p>

<p>"Content?" she said, "content? We will be happy."</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 28]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 29]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterII">
<h2>II</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
                      There is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil!

<span class="smcap right">Lowell.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 30]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 31]</span></p>
<p>"Do you remember Gabriel Betteredge?" asked Adam, a day or so
later, as he watched her set the house in order after their breakfast.
"You know in times of great mental perturbation he always sought
comfort and counsel from the pages of 'Robinson Crusoe.' When in doubt
he waited until to-morrow, as Robinson advised; and no matter what his
perplexities, he always found just what he wanted in that infallible
book. If I remember correctly, but it's years since I read it,
Robinson goes on a voyage of discovery the first thing."</p>

<p>"He built a raft to get away from the wreck first, I think," she
said reflectively. "Or did he build the <span class="pagenum">[pg.
32]</span>raft to get to the wreck? I can't remember. And then he
built a house. Somewhere along there he wrote down his situation in a
deadly parallel; I have sometimes wondered if he was the inventor of
that style. But he offset the debit of being cast away with gratitude
for having escaped with his life. We're not, at least I'm not, sure
that belongs on the credit side."</p>

<p>"We don't want to do much exploring yet," he answered. "If we have
no wreck to supply us with all sorts of things, we have a house ready
to hand, not exactly as we would either of us have ordered it, I
fancy, but better than we could build. Do you know what there is in
it? We might begin our investigations here."</p>

<p>"'With lamp in hand we will explore,'" she hummed, "but two rooms
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 33]</span>and a cellar do not promise much.
There is nothing to see in this room, except what we do see, and the
contents of that chest, which is locked."</p>

<p>Adam tried the lock, then shook the chest. "There's nothing in it,
anyhow," he said.</p>

<p>"As to the other room," she went on, "there is a bedroom
set,&#8212;a better one than I should have expected to find in a place
like this,&#8212;and a closet with some clothes in it. The man was
about your size, but the feminine garments&#8212;well&#8212;they are
all about the length of my bicycle skirt, and on the shelf there is a
pile of bedding. There is no trap door leading into either
subterranean or overhead apartments. In fact, there is nothing else,
except a chair. It's very uninteresting."</p>

<p>Adam had been moving about the room, and stopped before the
book<span class="pagenum">[pg. 34]</span>shelf. He wound the clock
mechanically, and read the titles of the books aloud. A chemistry, a
book on electricity, a Bible, a worn copy of Tennyson, the "Yankee at
King Arthur's Court," and a patent medicine almanac made up the
list.</p>

<p>"There is one mysterious thing," he said, "and that is the packing
cases out under the shed. I can't make up my mind what they contain,
and I don't quite feel that we ought to open them; I should like to;
they look as if they might hold&#8212;"</p>

<p>"Canned goods?" she said interrogatively.</p>

<p>"I was going to say books, but I suppose we need canned lobster
more," he assented. "If you are sure they contain oats, peas, beans,
or barley, or anything that the farmer knows, that would justify me in
opening them." <span class="pagenum">[pg. 35]</span>He took up a
hatchet, and they went out and inspected the boxes, which were very
large and strong.</p>

<p>"Let's not open them yet," she said. "There is one other treasure
in one of the bureau drawers; it is a box with seeds of almost every
kind. They ought to have known most of those things wouldn't grow up
this close to timber-line."</p>

<p>"Probably they were sent by the congressman from this district,"
Adam said dryly. "But I'm not so sure they won't grow. Have you
noticed how warm it is, how very unlike what it has always been? Let
us go to the stables, and see what we can find there."</p>

<p>They went up a path, past a garden, fenced with woven wire, through
which the chickens looked longingly. Under some sashes forming a
primitive <span class="pagenum">[pg. 36]</span>greenhouse, lettuce and
radishes were making good headway. Nothing else had come up, though
there were many beds, with small slips of board, like miniature
tombstones, showing what had been planted. The stables and cow-barn
were all under one roof, and would accommodate several horses and a
few cows. There was hay and fodder in a lot adjoining, and a few
ordinary farm implements, a plow, a harrow, and a cultivator in a shed
addition.</p>

<p>"Do you know what it is for?" she asked mischievously, as he pulled
out the plow.</p>

<p>"Do you think I never remembered the granger vote in my ambitions?"
he answered. "I can plow, and I have planted and snapped corn, and cut
fodder, and dug potatoes&#8212;I wonder if there are any here?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 37]</span>"Yes," she answered; "in the
cellar, at least a bushel, mostly gone to eyes, but I forget how thick
to cut them. If we were only 'The Swiss Family Robinson,'" she went
on, "we should find yams and pineapples and oranges and sugar-cane and
bananas coming up between the rocks. As it is, I am thankful to the
congressman who sent the peas and morning-glories."</p>

<p>"There is only about enough wheat and corn to plant fifteen acres,"
Adam said, making a rough calculation in his mind. "I will plow a
little over that, so as to have a patch for the potatoes, and get it
ready as soon as possible."</p>

<p>"I know how to plant corn and potatoes," she said eagerly. "Just as
soon as you get part of the land ready, I will begin. You didn't know
I was brought up on a ranch, did you? <span class="pagenum">[pg.
38]</span>I never was very fond of recalling it. It is a perpetual
round of conditions unlike any theory ever heard of." She shrugged her
shoulders, and stopped at the rude table under the porch to crumb some
slices of what looked like a kind of cornbread.</p>

<p>"What is it?" he asked curiously.</p>

<p>"That is to enable us to make light of our troubles," she replied
solemnly. "Or, for thy more sweet understanding it is, or at least I
hope it will be, yeast. I found a Twin Brothers yeast cake, and from
it, behold the brethren! I know that raised bread is unhealthy, and
that to get the worth of your money you ought to eat the bran also,
and that the best bread, from the hygienic standpoint, is made from
wheat-paste, and is about the consistency of sole leather; but even if
yeast does shorten our lives, I don't <span class="pagenum">[pg.
39]</span>know that I shall give it up on that account."</p>

<p>The planting of their crops took several weeks, and was very hard
work, for neither of them was an expert farmer. When the corn and
wheat came up there were almost no weeds, and the stand was better
than usual for sod land; but they were kept busy warding off the
horses and cattle that preferred the fresh young corn and wheat to the
indifferent natural grass.</p>

<p>"I thought," she said wearily, after driving away the intruders for
the third time,&#8212;"I thought fences were a sign of civilization,
but they seem to be the first necessity of the wilderness."</p>

<p>She was sitting on a rock, fanning her flushed face with her
sombrero, when Adam came to her assistance.</p>

<p>"You should have waited," he said. "I was coming, but I had to
hitch the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 40]</span>team." He turned and
looked at her, and laughed boyishly. "The run hasn't hurt you," he
said; "you look like a wild rose. I believe I shall call you so; may
I? I can't call you by the old name."</p>

<p>She colored hotly, then turned quite pale, and there was a touch of
reserve in her voice as she answered rather too indifferently, "If you
choose, still I think, O Adam Crusoe, that Friday or Robinson would be
a better name."</p>

<p>"We'll compromise on Robin," he said. "A rose by any other name is
just as sweet."</p>

<p>"I wish we had a fence," she said turning the subject hastily.</p>

<p>"We have," he answered. "If we were to build one ourselves, it
would have to be of rocks, but Nature has provided a magnificent stone
barrier. We have only to drive the animals
we <span class="pagenum">[pg. 41]</span>are not using through the
gateway, and fasten that little wooden concern after them. There is
good pasture outside, and if we need them we can go after them. Lassie
will look after Daisy and Lily, won't you, little dog? I will go and
open the gate and drive them through. You help Lassie keep those two
back."</p>

<p>She stood undecidedly, and he turned and said gently, "I will come
back without passing through the gateway. I will never pass it without
you. I wouldn't dare. Now see how nicely Lassie will conduct this
round-up."</p>

<p>As he went toward the gateway, her eyes followed him with a look he
would hardly have comprehended, it was so full of relief and
gratitude. He understood and reassured her without noticing her fears
or smiling at <span class="pagenum">[pg. 42]</span>her weakness. Every
day and many times she thanked God that, of all the men who might have
been left by this modern deluge, it was Adam who had been with her and
was with her in this terrible experience.</p>

<p>&#160;</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 43]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterIII">
<h2>III</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count,&#8212;I took no note.

<span class="smcap">Byron.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 44]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 45]</span></p>
<p>They had been on the island nearly four months. The corn was waving
in the soft breeze, and the sun shone down hotly. Indoors sweet corn
was boiling in the same pot with new potatoes, while in an improvised
milk-boiler on coals, at one side of the fireplace, peas were
simmering. The table was spread, and there was white bread and jersey
butter and raspberries. Adam, with Lassie's puppies crawling over him,
sat in the doorway, and watched Robin put the finishing touches to
their Sunday dinner.</p>

<p>His apparel was somewhat picturesque, and he had a brown and
thoroughly healthy look. Robin was dressed in a costume of blue
denims. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 46]</span>The skirt was rather
short, and the waist was a blouse, finished at the throat with a broad
collar that turned away from a neck still white in spite of much
sunlight. Their months of roughing it had not harmed them, and only
the intense sadness in Adam's eyes, the pathetic droop of Robin's
mouth, when they thought themselves unobserved, told a story different
from that of pastoral content.</p>

<p>Their meal was unusually silent. Sometimes they fell into long
lapses of silence; there was so much not to say. In all the weeks of
the past they had worked, almost feverishly, allowing as little time
as possible for thought, and never speaking of what was oftenest in
their minds. Much of the time Adam seemed to be in a dream, only half
realizing the flight of time, that made hope more and more hopeless.
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 47]</span>Robin said nothing. One would not
seek to console the sky with phrases if all the stars were wiped out.
She half reproached herself at times for the peace, the something akin
to happiness, that had crept into her life. She had long before grown
very weary of the world and all it had to offer.</p>

<p>She was stung at the sight of Adam's quiet face, with the repressed
suffering that had somehow touched it with a beauty it had not
possessed, and she said impetuously, "Let us go out, Adam; let us go
quite away somewhere, and talk. There is so much I want to ask you,
but I have not dared."</p>

<p>He looked up with such a hurt expression that she went on quickly,
"Not that; I mean I couldn't. I have been afraid to put things in
words. They grow so much more real then. <span class="pagenum">[pg.
48]</span>But now I am afraid to keep my thoughts longer."</p>

<p>They went past the wheat and corn fields, through a narrow cañon
that led them to a valley they had never seen before. It was very
beautiful, and the play of the sunlight on the high walls of rock, the
murmur of the stream below them, the trembling aspens, the white peaks
in the distance, made a scene worthy their attention, but they were
blind to it.</p>

<p>They sat down on a broad stone seat; presently Adam said, "Now,
tell me; tell me how it seems to you."</p>

<p>"No," she answered, "you must tell me. What has happened to us,
Adam? Where are we, and why were we left?"</p>

<p>"God knows," he said reverently.</p>

<p>"Do you think it possible," she said slowly, "that we are
dead?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 49]</span>"Oh, I don't know!" he broke
out, with a return to something of his old childlike impatience.
"Sometimes I think it is all a dream, and directly I shall wake up and
find myself in my dingy old law office. But you are not a dream. These
mountains are not a dream. Lassie barking down below there is not a
dream; and these callous spots on my hands are real enough in all
conscience, and no dream could last so long. Sometimes I think we have
been hypnotized and carried off and left on an island somewhere.
Sometimes&#8212;do you remember the man who computed the vast number
of 'mysterious disappearances,' and formed a theory that the earth was
being sorted out before the opening of the last vial, or some such
stuff? Do you think we can be simply another disappearance?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 50]</span>"I don't know," she said. "It
seems easier to believe that, easier to believe anything than that the
whole world has disappeared."</p>

<p>"Then I think sometimes," he went on, "that there are evil
powers,&#8212;I know this sounds as if I had lost my mind, and maybe I
have, I'm not sure of anything,&#8212;but it seems as if there might
be an explanation if we believed in genii who have power over us.
Perhaps you and I, who so often found fault with the poor old earth,
are being punished by banishment from it. Perhaps we are being
prepared for some great work. I haven't very much religion, and yet I
suppose I do believe in a divine purpose back of things, a directing
power that wastes nothing. I have tried to think why this thing should
come upon us, you and me, of all the world; and while
it <span class="pagenum">[pg. 51]</span>seems an evil thing, a
terrible and overwhelming disaster, when I realize that it might have
befallen me alone, then just the fact that you are here makes it seem
almost good. Do you understand?"</p>

<p>"Yes," she said quickly. "I have felt just so. When, at first, I
felt as if I should curse God and die, I had only to remember you to
fall on my knees for thankfulness. Even if a dozen other people had
been left instead, no one would have understood as you have. Oh, I
would infinitely rather be alone with you than in the utter loneliness
of the society of a lot of men and women who would drive me mad with
their complaints and inefficiency. I don't know whether it is a dream,
or heaven or hell, or the work of some black magic; I only know that
if it is a punishment it has been commuted,
in <span class="pagenum">[pg. 52]</span>that you share it. And yet how
selfish that sounds, as selfish as love itself. I ought to wish you
were in a better, happier place, where you could carry out your
ambitions&#8212;" She stopped, and her eyes filled.</p>

<p>"Don't mind," he said grimly. "If that is selfishness, I am selfish
to the core. I have gone over the whole list, and I don't know any one
I would rather sacrifice to companionship with me in this exile than
you. My parents were old; they could never have borne the shock. My
sisters would be unhappy without their families; my women friends
could none of them have met the exigencies of such an existence as you
have; and as for men, by this we would all have been barbarians
together. You have kept me sane and alive, for that matter."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 53]</span>"But are we sane?" she said
slowly, "I think I could stand it if I only knew we were sane and
alive. It is the feeling that I don't know anything, that this valley,
these mountains, may fade like the baseless fabric of a dream. And
sometimes I think that it may be real, all real but you, and that I
shall find myself here all alone, dead or alive, sane or mad. God! how
horrible it is!"</p>

<p>"That thought has never troubled me," he said. "Whatever has put us
in this dream together will keep us together to the end. You have not
wanted me to go far away from you, so we have worked together; I have
even let you do work that was unfit for you because I knew you would
prefer it. You were more frank about it, but you didn't feel any more
strongly than I did. I couldn't, <span class="pagenum">[pg.
54]</span>I can't bear to have you out of my sight."</p>

<p>"Have you ever thought that it may be so?" she asked
hesitatingly.</p>

<p>"What? That it isn't a dream, and that we are sane and alive? Yes,
I have thought of that too. If it be true, how universal is the
destruction? We know now, pretty well, from the time that has
passed,&#8212;by the way, how long is it?" He stopped with a sudden
dazed look, and turned to her.</p>

<p>"It was the first of May," she said softly. "Now it is nearly the
last of August."</p>

<p>"Four months!" he said in a shocked tone. "I did not realize it; I
must have been worse stunned than I thought. In that case it seems as
if there can't be anything left of this continent, unless it be
detached peaks here and there, where other
mountain <span class="pagenum">[pg. 55]</span>ranges have been. There
may be other men and women waiting as we wait for a sail, a sign, a
message, and they do not know any more than we do whence it is to
come. The alteration in the climate has convinced me that the waters
on our West are those of the Pacific; it has been so warm and
pleasant. I have tried to imagine what kind of a winter we may expect,
or will the winter of our discontent be made glorious
summer&#8212;"</p>

<p>"By three crops of strawberries, like California?" she
interrupted.</p>

<p>"Perhaps," he said, smiling. "As to the East, that may be the
Atlantic, or the Gulf; it seems more probable that it is the latter.
The St. Lawrence district was said to be the oldest section of this
continent, and it is reasonable to suppose the earth's crust thickest
there, and along the mountain ranges. <span class="pagenum">[pg.
56]</span>I suppose the continent has gone to make another layer, a
stratum, on top of the pliocene, and after awhile the waters will
subside, or some volcanic action will raise up a new continent. If
there are any ships anywhere, on any seas, they will search every
degree of latitude and longitude. Our flag floats, did float, all over
this globe; if it still flies anywhere, we shall see it again."</p>

<p>"If I did," she said irreverently, "I should feel sure we were in
heaven. It was beautiful before, but what wouldn't it mean now, Adam?
But have you any one left on earth; if this continent is all gone, who
would look for you? There are people of my blood, or there were, but
they did not even know of my existence."</p>

<p>"There is not a soul," he answered. "Indeed, in this country it
would have <span class="pagenum">[pg. 57]</span>been one chance in ten
million. You might have done it," he said, half jestingly, "but you
are here."</p>

<p>"Yes," she echoed; "I am here. Adam, how long will it be before you
are satisfied that no one is left, no one in the sense of any
civilized people, with a country and means of circumnavigation?"</p>

<p>"A year," he answered, "perhaps more, but a year anyhow. I shall
not give up hope until then."</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 58]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 59]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterIV">
<h2>IV</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
        How gladly would I meet
Mortality my sentence, and be earth
Insensible! How glad would lay me down
As in my mother's lap!

<span class="smcap">Milton.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 60]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 61]</span></p>
<p>The corn hardened, and the wheat ripened, and was harvested in
truly primeval fashion. Adam cut the wheat with a scythe, and Robin
followed him, binding it as best she could. They shocked it together,
and then began hauling it to the barn with the horses and bob-sleds,
their only vehicle. The stacking was weary work and progressed slowly.
Adam watched his co-worker toil over the sheaves, and then took them
from her and pitched them on the stack haphazard.</p>

<p>"You shall not bother over it any more," he said, "not if we live
on hominy all winter. Have you ever been in Mexico? Well, Hawaii was
called the land of poco tempo, <span class="pagenum">[pg.
62]</span>but Mexico was the land of mañana. There isn't any work
there for the work's sake. I mean there wasn't, and we can take a
lesson from them. We need not hurry; the legislature will not meet
this winter, and there will be no grand opera before spring. Daisy and
Lily shall do our work for us. We will find a bit of hard, smooth
ground, and then we will not muzzle the cows that tread out the
grain."</p>

<p>"Willingly," gasped Robin, climbing down from her slippery eminence
on top of the load of grain; "but do you think we are going to have
any winter?"</p>

<p>"That is pre-eminently one of the things that no fellow can find
out," he answered. "In a dream you are likely to have any kind of
weather, and on a submerged planet we have no precedents at hand to
tell us what to expect.<span class="pagenum">[pg. 63]</span> By
replanting the vegetables right along we have had a perpetual crop. As
long as we have this kind of weather things will grow, and I suppose
we would better let them. Shut in as we are, it doesn't seem likely
that any very fearful winds are apt to trouble us; and if there is a
wet season, on this slope we shall have good drainage. If the worst
comes to the worst, there's the tunnel. Could you make that cheerful
and homelike?"</p>

<p>Robin smiled rather sadly. "It will do to put the grain in," she
said, and they walked on silently.</p>

<p>The spot finally selected for the threshing floor was brushed as
clean as twig brooms would make it, and the wheat spread out upon it.
Adam and Lassie drove the cows over it leisurely, and between times
Adam <span class="pagenum">[pg. 64]</span>experimented on a flail.
When he finally had one that answered the purpose, and found he could
use it without fracturing his skull, the cows were released, and he
went on with the work. Seated on a boulder close by, her sombrero
tipped well over her eyes, Robin fanned the grain, and converted it
into a coarse cracked wheat with a venerable coffee-mill.</p>

<p>"I will make you a Mexican mill, when I get through with this,"
said Adam, "but you cannot use it, because it is too hard work; I
shall have to be the miller. It is a rather simple affair, and dates
from before the days of Noah; it is made with two stones, sandstone
preferred, the lower of which is hollowed out bowl-fashion, with a
hole in the centre; the upper stone is rounding, and fits in the bowl,
and has a hole in it <span class="pagenum">[pg. 65]</span>about four
inches from the edge, in which a stout wooden handle is inserted, with
which to turn it. The two stones are ground together until they become
smooth. Then they are placed on four other stones as rests, and a
blanket or cloth is spread underneath to catch the meal. The grain is
poured around the edge of the upper stone, and works down. It makes a
very tolerable flour."</p>

<p>"How handy you are!" she said. "Isn't it a good thing we hadn't
civilized the whole world to such a degree that only patent high-grade
flour was used? Where should we be now without the simple devices of
the good people of the Stone Age, and their survivors on whom we
looked down with so much scorn?"</p>

<p>The snapping of the corn was an easier matter, and it was piled in
the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 66]</span>tunnel till they should be
ready to shell it. Then Adam did what he called his "fall plowing,"
and left the bare brown sod to lie fallow.</p>

<p>So far as possible, they had retained the manners and customs of
the world that had left them. There was a tolerable supply of
clothing, and a good deal more household linen than could have been
expected. Robin concluded that the owners of the cabin had not been
long married, and the bride, knowing to what kind of a place she was
coming, had thought more of her house than of herself. All the
feminine garments had to be re-fashioned. Robin made her skirts short
enough for mountain climbing, and dreading the time when her one pair
of shoes should give out, she wore sandals fashioned from yucca leaves
by Adam's clever fingers. As the hair-pins<span class="pagenum">[pg.
67]</span> lost themselves, she braided her hair in a long queue, the
curling ends of which fell far below her waist.</p>

<p>The little house was kept as neat and clean as if it were
headquarters for all the labor-saving inventions in the world, and
their meals were as well served as if a corps of servants had been in
attendance. They were simple, and often a little monotonous, as meals
must be where there is nothing save what grows on one's own
plantation. They had no tea, coffee, sugar, spices, or foreign fruits.
However, the hardship of manual labor and plain food would cure most
cases of dyspepsia, and they did not suffer.</p>

<p>One day early in December, Robin woke to the consciousness of a
steady drip, drip of rain, accompanied by an indescribably mournful
wind. In the other room she heard Adam piling
on <span class="pagenum">[pg. 68]</span>the logs, and shivered.
Perhaps the winter had come. It had been hard enough when there was
plenty of work, and the free outdoor life; if they should become
prisoners, how should they, how would <i>he</i> endure it? She dressed
quickly, and met his cheery "good-morning" in kind, and over their
breakfast they discussed the possibility of this storm being the first
of many. They decided that they must get the corn into such shape that
the tunnel would be available for the hapless cattle, or even for
themselves, if need be.</p>

<p>"We will go up there and shell corn all day," said Adam. "It isn't
really cold, and you can wrap up a bit. I wish I had thought to take a
lot of stone into the tunnel to build a bin at the end to put the corn
in. I don't know how we are to manage it."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 69]</span>She disappeared into the
bedroom and came back presently with a few grain sacks. When Adam
opened the door he was nearly ready to abandon his plan.</p>

<p>"You will be wet through," he said; "I cannot let you go."</p>

<p>"Then you cannot go either," she answered.</p>

<p>"But I must," he said. She was standing by him, hardly reaching his
shoulder, the sacks over her head. Catching her up in his arms, he
banged the door behind them, and ran up the slope to the tunnel, where
he deposited her laughing, and shaking the water from her curly hair.
As he had said, it was not cold, and they sat down near the mouth of
the tunnel, turned the tops of their sacks back over corncobs, and
shelled the corn in silence. At last a little sigh from Robin made
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 70]</span>Adam look up quickly. Her hands
were bleeding.</p>

<p>"Robin," he cried angrily, "how can you be so cruel! I don't want
you to do this work; there is no need. I forgot to watch you; besides,
I know you are tired. You did not sleep last night; I heard you moving
about."</p>

<p>"Then you did not sleep either," she responded quickly.</p>

<p>He flushed through the tan, and scooping some dry leaves together
into a bed, took off his coat and folded it for a pillow.</p>

<p>"Lie down and rest a little now," he said, "while I go down to the
house and see what I can find for lunch. Then you can have a good
sleep this afternoon."</p>

<p>He was gone several minutes, and when he came back with some
sandwiches in a tin bucket, and a dozen <span class="pagenum">[pg.
71]</span>scarlet radishes dripping in his hand, he stopped appalled.
Robin was at the extreme end of the tunnel, sitting on the ground,
laughing and crying and talking extravagant nonsense. Had she really
gone mad, at last? Adam put down the bucket, and walked toward her
unsteadily. She did not stir, but went on chattering in the same
absurd way, until she saw him; then she cried excitedly, "Oh, look!
it's kittens, real little tame kittens, though their mother won't come
near me yet. She is over in that corner."</p>

<p>Adam saw her green eyes, and though distrustful she was not
unfriendly. Emptying the bucket, he ran down to the sheds, and came
back with some milk which he poured into the top of the pail, and set
down before the kittens. They lapped it <span class="pagenum">[pg.
72]</span>eagerly, and as the two human beings withdrew discreetly,
the cat crept out of her corner and joined in the feast. When it was
over, Robin took possession of one tiny ball of fur, and Adam of
another, while they made their own meal. Then Robin curled up among
the dead leaves, and slept like a child.</p>

<p>It was growing dusk when Adam awoke from his day-dreams. The tunnel
looked like a small grain elevator. On one side Robin still slept, but
the old cat was nestled contentedly at her feet, and the kittens were
playing sleepily over her.</p>

<p>"What is she dreaming?" Adam asked wearily. "All day I have sat
here and dreamed dreams that can never come true. I know it; I feel
it. I told her a year, but I am as sure now as I shall be in six
years, that there is no hope. The watch-fire
is <span class="pagenum">[pg. 73]</span>out to-night,&#8212;the first
night in eight months. I shall re-light it for her sake; not that she
is any more deceived than I, but she will be happier to believe me
still hopeful. What will be the end of it all? How can it end?"</p>

<p>"The same old way," came a sleepy voice from the leaves, "with the
'got married and lived happily ever after' formula." She sat up and
rubbed her eyes, and stretched lazily, to the discomfort of the
kittens, who retreated hastily. As she struggled to her feet and a
knowledge of her surroundings, her face changed pitifully, and she sat
down again and cried miserably.</p>

<p>"Oh, it was so real!" she sobbed. "I can see it now. We were back
in the old house, in the library, don't you remember it? and Walter
was at <span class="pagenum">[pg. 74]</span>the piano, and Louis had
just asked me how to finish his last story. Did I answer out loud? Oh,
which is the dream, for that was as real as this!"</p>

<p>Adam stood and watched her. He tried not to think of that apropos
answer. He heard the beating, steady patter of the rain, and the
lowing of the cows, and there was not even a star in heaven to look at
him from its accustomed place with a friendly, twinkling promise for
the future. There was nothing left. So far as he was concerned, the
earth was without form and void. There was nothing to wait or hope
for. There was nothing to live for, neither cheerful yesterdays nor
confident to-morrows. What was the use in living? He looked down at
the slender creature lying outstretched almost at his feet, shaken
with the agony of long-repressed<span class="pagenum">[pg. 75]</span>
grief, and then at his long, muscular hands. How little it would take
to end it all for both of them! A mist came over his eyes and he
stooped, his hands outstretched toward her white throat. They fell on
the rounded curve of her shoulder. He checked the caress as he checked
the other impulse and shook her instead.</p>

<p>"Let us go home," he said.</p>

<p>They went into the storm.</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 76]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 77]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterV">
<h2>V</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
Why wilt thou take a castle on thy back
When God gave but a pack?
With gown of honest wear, why wilt thou tease
For braid and fripperies?
Learn thou with flowers to dress, with birds to feed,
And pinch thy large want to thy little need.

<span class="smcap">Frederick Langbridge.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 78]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 79]</span></p>
<p>The next morning dawned clear and warm, and Adam, coming in with
his milk-pails, held out his hand to Robin. There were three ripe
strawberries.</p>

<p>"See," he said, "they are the harbingers of spring, or a California
climate, and either way makes our gain. California without fogs and
fleas is heavenly enough for most people."</p>

<p>Nevertheless, they completed the shelling of the corn, and made a
bin for it at the end of the tunnel, removing the cat family to the
house, where Lassie viewed their advent with jealous eyes. One day
when they had been hulling corn for nearly a week, Adam sat down and
began laughing. "Do you know how much corn it takes to plant an acre?"
he asked.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 80]</span>"No," said Robin, blankly. "I
know something about the number of kernels to the hill,&#8212;'one for
the cutworm, and one for the crow, and one for something-or-other
else, I forget what, and one to grow.' Why?"</p>

<p>"It takes eight quarts to plant an acre. We have raised about
thirty bushels to the acre, which is very well for sod. That will make
over fifteen thousand pounds of meal and hominy, and will feed us for
seven years, even if we eat six pounds daily. Unless there is a winter
season, when we must do something for the animals, there is not the
slightest use in planting more than an acre. As to the wheat, even
with a light yield, there would be fifteen hundred pounds to the acre.
We have fresh vegetables all the time, and there will be any quantity
of potatoes and cabbage and beans."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 81]</span>"And yet people starved
everywhere, and it seemed to me that the farmers were the worst off of
all."</p>

<p>"They farmed to make money, not to live, and they had no control
over the markets. They had to sell or build barns. It is only Dives
who can afford to tear down the old ones and build greater. It was
easier for them to sell cheap to a man who took their wheat and held
it until it could be sold back to them as dear flour. They were eaten
up with mortgages and pests and interest. Have you noticed that there
are almost no insects here, not even flies and mosquitoes? They were
never so bad in the mountains, and apparently they have been wiped out
with the rest."</p>

<p>"Truly, Adam," she said, "speaking just of the physical part of it,
would you regret this year?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 82]</span>He stood up and stretched out
his arms, a splendid type of manhood, smooth-shaven, with clear-cut
features, bronzed, square-shouldered, and powerful.</p>

<p>"Oh, you are magnificent!" she cried involuntarily. "It has done
you good, great good. You are twice the man you were in strength and
health and resource; and if only we had been cast away on an island,
knowing we were sure to be rescued some day soon, I should not be
sorry at all."</p>

<p>He colored and answered frankly: "Without the mental strain, I
should not regret this year. Sometimes, when I am sure it is a dream,
and that presently we shall waken, I can't help wondering whether we
shall not wish we had fretted less and enjoyed it more. When I come to
think of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 83]</span>it, I believe it is the
first time since I was a child that ways and means have not troubled
me. It was a good thing to work as we have, to keep our minds
employed, but now that we are sure that starvation is five or six
years away, we might as well drop the old, headlong rush to get more
than we need. That has been the trouble ever since men began to make
history. It was the same thing,&#8212;power, conquest, riches,
everything; too much to eat, too much to drink, too much to
wear&#8212;"</p>

<p>"Well, you can't say that of us," said Robin ruefully, looking down
at her made-over gown.</p>

<p>"Well, perhaps not, and I don't mean that there ever was a time
when there was a general surfeit, but I mean that was the tendency.
There would have been plenty for all, if part
had <span class="pagenum">[pg. 84]</span>not taken more than their
share; as for the other part who had not enough, they only longed for
the opportunity to simulate their unwise betters. When they could,
they took too much, too, if it was only to drink and forget their
misery. We could have lived so well and so easily, if we had lived
more simply, coming more directly in contact with nature, as we have
this year."</p>

<p>She shook her head doubtfully. "This has not been real life at all.
We have only kept alive. We haven't read anything or done anything or
helped any one&#8212;"</p>

<p>"Except each other and the animals dependent on us. On the whole, I
don't know but that we have accomplished about as much as when we were
devoting most of our attention to paying board and rent bills. We have
helped each other more than we <span class="pagenum">[pg.
85]</span>can measure. We should have died had we been left alone with
our thoughts. All of life is not in cities, nor even in books."</p>

<p>She did not answer for some moments, and then said slowly, "If it
were a dream, and we were going back to the old life, what would you
regret most?"</p>

<p>"If we were going back to the world we know, I should regret a good
many things; first, I suppose, that I did not realize sooner that we
must be going back, instead of letting myself be utterly overwhelmed.
Then I think I should be sorry that I didn't practise, à la
Demosthenes, when I had a whole coast to myself, and most of all I
should regret that we have not kept a record of our lives from day to
day. There is other writing I should want to do,&#8212;but there is no
paper, and I don't know how to make any."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 86]</span>"There is plenty of time to do
all that yet," she said. "What else would you wish you had done?"</p>

<p>He looked at her, for there was something in her voice he did not
understand, but her eyes were turned from him. "I should regret that
we had not talked more. Do you know, we have been very silent? And we
used to have so many things to talk over in the old days. I should
have twinges of remorse that I did not make more of your companionship
when I had it, instead of raising more corn than we can eat in half a
dozen years, and letting you tear your hands shelling it." He stooped
and kissed one of her slender hands. She withdrew it quickly; there
had never been even a touch of the sentimental between them.</p>

<p>"What would you regret?" he asked suddenly.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 87]</span>She shrank a little, and her
eyes looked far away, past the gateway. "Some of the things you
mention; very much that I had not encouraged you more to go on with
your work, but mainly&#8212;"</p>

<p>"Well, mainly?"</p>

<p>She jumped down from the rock where she had been sitting, and
answered evasively, "I don't think there is any mainly, unless it is
that when I had such a good chance to be a hermit, I couldn't remember
all those wonderful Mahatma practices that make one so good and so
wise. The only formulas I have really tried hard to recall are for
cooking without sugar, or spice, or fruit."</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 88]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 89]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterVI">
<h2>VI</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
Heap on more wood!&#8212;the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.

<span class="smcap">Scott.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 90]</span></p>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 91]</span></p>
<p>It was Christmas Eve, and the night being in a reminiscent mood,
was chillier than usual. Adam piled up the logs till the whole room
was full of the warm glow. "Let us hang up our stockings," he said,
with an attempt at gayety.</p>

<p>Robin spread out her hands with a gesture of comic distress. "If
only I had a pair to hang!" she said. "But they gave boxes in England,
didn't they? I noticed that the rain the other day seemed to have come
through the shed roof, and I fear the contents of those packing cases
may be the worse for it, especially if they happen to be sugar. Do you
think it would do to make ourselves presents of them? If you do,
please give me the smaller box; I am sure <span class="pagenum">[pg.
92]</span>it has hair-pins and needles and darning-cotton in it."</p>

<p>Adam laughed. "We will give them to each other," he said, "and
perhaps you'll find some stockings in your box, if there is no box in
your stockings. We can dream of their contents all night,
and&#8212;who knows?&#8212;we may have a merry Christmas, after
all."</p>

<p>Robin hardly knew the place next morning. Adam had risen early and
decked every available spot with kinnikinnick until the room fairly
glistened. "I wish I knew how to thank him," she said.</p>

<p>"Do you like it?" he said, as he came in. "I was afraid I should
waken you putting it up."</p>

<p>"Like it!" she answered, "Why, Adam, it is beautiful. You are just
an ideal Santa Claus."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 93]</span>When they had finished their
breakfast they went out and looked at the boxes.</p>

<p>"You must open yours first," she said; "it's so big I know it
doesn't contain anything nice, so we would better save mine till the
last, and then I can divide with you. What do you think it is? You
shall have three guesses."</p>

<p>"It might be a piano from its size," he ventured.</p>

<p>"No," she said decidedly. "It's not the right shape."</p>

<p>"Or perhaps it's a feather-bed; I don't know of anything I want
less."</p>

<p>"It's too large for that; now guess, really."</p>

<p>"As a matter of fact, I expect it is mining machinery, which will
be about as much use as another chimney; but here goes to find out."
He brought <span class="pagenum">[pg. 94]</span>his hatchet down
vigorously between the boards at one end, where a slight crevice
promised some leeway.</p>

<p>"Oh, do be careful," she cried "even if there's nothing in it but
stove-polish and excelsior, the nails and the boards are absolute
treasures!"</p>

<p>He proceeded more gently. There was any amount of hoop-iron, which
he removed carefully, and the nails were drawn with as much caution as
if they had been teeth, as they well might be, considering there were
no more on earth to draw. When the top of the box was finally off, and
a quantity of papers removed, they gave a simultaneous cry of delight.
The box was full of books. They took them out, one at a time, with
little exclamations of pleasure, as an old friend came to light.
Sitting down on the ground they piled the
books <span class="pagenum">[pg. 95]</span>about them on the papers,
and opening favorites here and there read to each other and themselves
till long after noon. It was really a fine library, well chosen,
covering a wide range of subjects and including an encyclopædia and an
unusually fine edition of Shakespeare.</p>

<p>"Isn't it the most beautiful Christmas present you can imagine,
Adam?" she said. "If you are not suited with this it must be because,
in the old slang, you 'want the earth.'"</p>

<p>"But we haven't even opened your box," he said.</p>

<p>"I don't want to," she answered slowly. "Somehow I feel as if we
would better stop now and let well enough alone. Let us enjoy this
awhile. Perhaps the other box may spoil this one, or at least the
day."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 96]</span>Adam laughed with good-natured
tolerance. "How absurd!" he said. "Let us see what there is. You know
you said yours would be the nicest; besides, if it contains sawdust
and last year's almanacs, I shall have to divide with you, and we may
quarrel over the Shakespeare." He opened the box while she stood
watching him with a strange unwillingness. It had been labeled, "This
Side Up," and on the very top there was a wooden case. He put it in
Robin's arms, and she opened it with trembling fingers. She replaced
the broken strings, adjusted the bridge, tucked the violin under her
chin, tuned it, and straightway escaped from every sorry care of
earth.</p>

<p>Adam went on unpacking the box. It contained chiefly materials for
writing,&#8212;all the paraphernalia that
the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 97]</span>fastidious student requires.
There were many note-books, and at the bottom a large, handsomely
inlaid writing-desk. The name on the cover made him start and call
her. She put down the violin reluctantly, and then stooped and kissed
the vibrating wood with sudden feeling.</p>

<p>"It is a Steiner," she said. "You know the story of Steiner's
violins, do you not? No? Some day, perhaps, I may tell you. Can you
open the desk?"</p>

<p>He found the key and unlocked it. There were some letters, a few
papers and memoranda, and a journal. Adam turned to the last page
written, and read:&#8212;</p>

<blockquote>
<p>"Have just completed arrangements for transportation of my effects
to the mountains. Close study of various phenomena convinces me that I
may have been in error, <span class="pagenum">[pg. 98]</span>and that
the cataclysm is much closer at hand than I have thought. Within a few
months I shall burn this book, and confess that I should be written
down an ass, or turn to it to prove myself a prophet. From the eyrie I
have chosen I expect to be able to write the story of the coming
deluge. It will be of great value to posterity to have a calm,
scientific account, quite free from any tinge of superstition or
religion. I have to-day written my Boston skeptics, forwarding copies
of my calculations, with references to former inundations, and reasons
for believing the Rocky Mountain region the safest at this time. All
geologists agree that&#8212;"</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Here the journal terminated abruptly.</p>

<p>Robin hardly seemed to comprehend its full significance; or
possibly she was not surprised. She touched the book as gently as if
it were the napkin over the face of the dead.</p>

<p>"It is not to the wise that God has <span class="pagenum">[pg.
99]</span>revealed himself," she said softly. "Where is the hand that
wrote this? You must finish it, Adam. Here are the blank pages waiting
for such a chapter as was never written on earth."</p>

<p>But Adam only looked at the half-written page unseeingly. "It is
all true, then," he muttered to himself; "it is all true." He walked
away with a painful precision of motion, almost as if he were drunk;
he neither heard nor saw anything, yet was conscious of everything,
and while he thought he had been hopeless before, he knew now that he
had never given up hope, never until that moment ceased to expect a
rescue.</p>

<p>Robin took her violin and went indoors. Presently he heard its
liquid notes stealing out to him, like a power unknown and divine,
brushing its <span class="pagenum">[pg. 100]</span>fingers across his
heart, the harp of a thousand strings. She played for a long time, and
when she ceased, in some strange way he felt that he was
comforted.</p>

<p>&#160;</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 101]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterVII">
<h2>VII</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
The World is too much with us; late and soon
  Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
  Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.


                   Great God! I'd rather be
  A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,&#8212;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
  Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
  Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

<span class="smcap">Wordsworth.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 102]</span></p>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 103]</span></p>
<p>They had been sitting by the fire in silence for a long time. Robin
had been sewing, but the blaze had sunk too low to see by it, and her
hands were folded idly upon her mending. She put it by, and went to
the window. It was a very dark night, and the stars shone brilliantly.
The stars had come to mean a great deal to them both, howbeit neither
had ever said so. The stars only were unchanged. "The thoughts of God
in the heavens" were the same, whatever might be His thought on
earth.</p>

<p>She sighed so heavily, that Adam asked quickly, "What is it?" and
she answered, with a nervous laugh, "I was thinking of the old legend,
that <span class="pagenum">[pg. 104]</span>the souls on other planets
call ours 'the sorrowful world.' What made it so sorrowful, Adam?"</p>

<p>"Ignorance would cover it all," he answered, "but to be specific,
intemperance, sensuality, avarice, and poverty. I don't mean
drunkenness only, when I say intemperance. I have known a few
prohibitionists in my time who were as intemperate in their eating as
any one could be in the matter of drink. I think intemperance in its
widest sense was the great curse of our time anyway; drink and tobacco
and tea and coffee; and as to our eating, there was too much, of
almost everything on earth that was not food, but which could be
over-salted and over-peppered, and treated with tabasco sauce. We
over-stimulated every activity of the body, and spent our lives doing
all kinds of things in which <span class="pagenum">[pg.
105]</span>there was no sense. Think of reading one or two morning and
evening papers every day. To be sure we said there was nothing in
them, but we used up our eyesight over them, and let a stream of
silliness and scandal dribble through our minds. As to the things we
wore&#8212;"</p>

<p>Robin laughed. "I know," she said. "The sewing-machine didn't save
work; it only made ruffles. A dressmaker once said to me, 'It's a good
thing for me that these women haven't sense enough to spend their time
and money on themselves, in making their bodies free and strong and
beautiful. But no; they would rather have a stylish dress than a
graceful body. They don't care to be beautiful themselves; all they
want is a handsome gown to cover their ugliness.' Isn't it strange
that we <span class="pagenum">[pg. 106]</span>never seemed able to
realize that the Greek fashions were immortal because they were
beautiful?"</p>

<p>"Still, I don't think the dress of the Greek women would be very
convenient for housework," ventured Adam.</p>

<p>Robin shook her head. "You only say that because some woman has
said it to you. The Diana of the Stag wore the first rainy-day gown.
The Greek dress was capable of ever so many modifications. If I were
making a handbook of proverbs for women, I should say, 'A good
complexion is rather to be chosen than many fine dresses, and glossy
and abundant hair turneth away wrath.' I believe in the simplification
of life. I understand just how Thoreau felt when he threw out that
specimen because it had to be dusted daily. There are very few things
beautiful enough <span class="pagenum">[pg. 107]</span>to pay for that
amount of trouble. But perhaps that is because I don't care for
specimens, and I loathe dusting."</p>

<p>"You ought to have been a Jap," said Adam. "There was one in
college, in my class, and one day when I was fretting over something I
could not afford he said, in that immensely polite way of theirs, 'You
I cannot understand. With all American people it so is, even as by
Ruskin said was it; whatever you have, of it you more would get, and
where you are, you would go from. You happy are only when something
you get, and never that you yourself are.' But I think the Celestial
was wrong there. When a man is self-conscious of illy-made garments, a
mean domicile, a poor kind of half education, he is uncomfortable; he
hasn't accomplished his <span class="pagenum">[pg.
108]</span>evolution from the conscious, the self-conscious, to the
unconscious. It was this very discomfort and inequality that used so
to enrage me, for it need not have been."</p>

<p>"I wish," said Robin, "we knew how to make paper; of all the
fascinating things in Bellamy's 'Equality,' there was nothing I liked
so well as the idea of paper garments, to be burned when one got
through with them. Think of never having any washing and ironing, and
always having new clothes."</p>

<p>"I wonder whether we could invent some of those things over again,"
said Adam, reflectively.</p>

<p>"I couldn't spare you any of my precious rags, if you could," said
Robin.</p>

<p>"Most of the paper was made out of wood, anyhow," answered Adam,
"and the ash that grows here in any <span class="pagenum">[pg.
109]</span>quantity was considered particularly fine for that
purpose."</p>

<p>"'God made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions,'"
quoted Robin, "and now we are going to seek them over again. I can't
imagine how anyone could ever make a lineotype, but the type and the
hand-press are easy enough, and if you can make paper, we may yet live
to read our 'published works.' You probably do not know that I used to
have a Wegg-like facility for dropping into poetry."</p>

<p>"Did you? That is another of the things you never told me; but your
speaking of Thoreau," answered Adam, "recalls what he said of the
amount of work necessary to sustain life beside Walden Pond. It took
six weeks out of the year, and that was in a most forbidding country.
In such a valley <span class="pagenum">[pg. 110]</span>as this two
months ought to be sufficient to more than feed and clothe us; but
then he didn't have to make his own clothing."</p>

<p>"And out of nothing particular," interrupted Robin.</p>

<p>Adam laughed and went on. "Did you ever hear of a man called
Hertzka? He was an eminent Austrian sociologist, and he figured it
out, that if five million men should work a little less than an hour
and three quarters a day they could produce all the necessities of
life for the twenty-two million people of Austria. By working two
hours and twelve minutes daily for two months beside, they could have
all the luxuries also. And that not for a few, not for the Court and
the nobility, but for all. There could have been music and pictures
and books and theatres, and sufficient <span class="pagenum">[pg.
111]</span>food and clothing. Isn't it strange that when we might have
been so happy we preferred to be so wretched? For even if we had all
we wanted ourselves, we could not escape the sights and sounds that
told of abject misery."</p>

<p>"It was always so," Robin answered moodily. "The poor we had always
with us. History always repeated itself."</p>

<p>"Still, it didn't exactly repeat itself," Adam said. "Our dark age
would have done for a golden age in the past. Greece was glorious for
a little while, but her literature tells us of her ideals. The isles
of Greece, where Byron contracted his last illness, would have left
him to die among the rocks twenty-five hundred years earlier, because
he had a lame foot. We at least were kinder to animals, and that means
a great deal."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 112]</span>"I don't know," she answered.
"Perhaps; it seems to me I have read of a hospital for sick animals on
the island of Ceylon a long sometime B. C. Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu&#8212;or was it Lady Hester Stanhope?&#8212;said she had
traveled all over the world, and had never found but two kinds of
people,&#8212;men and women. I fancy the same thing is true of all the
ages as well as all the countries."</p>

<p>"No," Adam said, shaking his head; "our ideals change. The scheme
of life laid down by Christ was to the Greeks foolishness and to the
Jews a stumbling-block, and there were plenty of Greeks and Jews in
our day. By Greeks I mean people whose ideals were purely
intellectual, and by Jews those who saw no good save a material good,
no God but the God of Mammon. They would not
hear <span class="pagenum">[pg. 113]</span>either Moses or the
prophets, and the statute of limitations was as near as they could
come to the Sabbatic year. The Greek and the Jew have stood ready with
their cup of hemlock, their crown of thorns for every Christ-spirit
that has ever come to earth. Yet more people read Socrates, and
believed on the Nazarene every year. I don't mean in the church; the
working-man did not go to church, but he uncovered his head at the
name of Christ, the first lawgiver who confounded the scribes and
Pharisees, and ate with publicans and sinners."</p>

<p>"But Moses was the first lawgiver to forbid taking the nether
millstone as a pledge," objected Robin.</p>

<p>"True," he admitted, "and the laws of Moses would have made the
world over. He was the greatest writer on political economy this earth
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 114]</span>has ever seen. His absolute fiat
against the alienation of the land would have done more for the common
people than all Adam Smith's theories of free competition, and
Fourier's dream of a perfected communism. But who would have known of
Moses, save for Christ? The Old Testament would have been merely the
sacred book of the Hebrews, and save as a literary and historic work,
of very uncertain historic value, would have been unread, as the Koran
and other books of a similar nature were unread."</p>

<p>"And yet you do not believe in the divinity of Christ," she said
slowly.</p>

<p>"No," he answered. "Is that necessary before one can believe in his
teachings? The truth is always divine. What difference does it make
whether the one who utters it be human or <span class="pagenum">[pg.
115]</span>divine, bond or slave, Æsop or Marcus Aurelius? the truth
remains the same. A fable is only another name of a parable. We have
the story of the lost sheep; that's a parable; and that of the lamb
that muddied the stream, and that's a fable. One is sacred, the other
profane, but both are fables, both parables. When you take them away
from the context it is as easy to feel for the lamb eaten by the wolf,
as for the one that was rescued, and has been immortalized in picture
and song."</p>

<p>"Probably you are right," she said. "I never thought of it in just
that way before," and saying "good night" she went to her room.</p>

<p>Adam thought he heard her humming, "Away on the mountains cold and
bare."</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 116]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 117]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterVIII">
<h2>VIII</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
When we mean to build
We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
And, then we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection.

<span class="smcap">Shakspere.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 118]</span></p>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 119]</span></p>

<p>The discovery of the incomplete journal made a subtle change in
Adam. He had been silent and self-absorbed from the first, but he had
never quite given up hope. Even now, Robin sought to keep up the
pretence, and dreading the despair which she saw creeping over Adam,
she began artfully to seek some means of interesting him in something
else. The question of a proper place for the books gave her an
opportunity, and Adam suggested that he build an addition to the
house.</p>

<p>They planned it as eagerly as if it was to be a castle, and spent
days in looking for adobe, but finally decided that logs would be
better, and Adam's <span class="pagenum">[pg. 120]</span>ax could have
been heard ringing from morning till night. A log house is not exactly
a work of art, but it requires no little skill to build one, and takes
a good deal of time when the logs for the floor must be planed and
squared, so as to make a matched board floor. Sometimes Robin went
with Adam, and worked or read; sometimes she took him his luncheon at
noon, for the trees were at some little distance from the house. The
logs had to be "snaked" across the rough ground and down the mountain,
and when the floor had been laid, and the location of the window
decided upon, Robin planted morning-glory seeds where it was to be. By
dint of much pushing and hauling the logs were finally put in place,
and the roof battened down. The window was truly worthy of a mediæval
castle, <span class="pagenum">[pg. 121]</span>for it was simply an
oblong hole, boxed in with a casement made from some scraps of boards,
while a slab shutter, swung on leather hinges, shut out the
elements.</p>

<p>The chinking was a simple matter, and when it was all done,
including a doorway into the main room, Robin was unfeignedly
delighted. They made rows of shelves with the packing-cases, and
arranged the books thereon. It was not an extensive library, but it
occupied one side of the room, and was a godsend to them. Under the
window Robin placed the green covered desk, and placed on it Adam's
writing materials. Along the inside wall Adam built a bunk, after the
fashion in miners' cabins, and with a mattress stuffed with the soft
inner cornhusk, and a pillow from the other room, and blankets from
the one tiny <span class="pagenum">[pg. 122]</span>closet, the couch
looked sufficiently inviting. On the floor Robin spread mats made from
plaited cornhusk, and in the doorway hung a portière, woven from the
same material on a loom that a Navajo might not have utterly
despised.</p>

<p>Adam's scanty wardrobe was transferred to pegs in one corner of the
room, one or two stools were set first here, then there, until Robin
was sure the best effect had been secured, and when all was done that
they could accomplish with the means at hand, and the morning-glory
blossoms came peeping in at the window, the room was by no means
unattractive.</p>

<p>Then Robin's housewifely soul took refuge in house-cleaning, and
she scrubbed and arranged and re-arranged, while Adam repaired or
invented furniture, until inside and out their
little <span class="pagenum">[pg. 123]</span>domain was as perfect as
they could make it.</p>

<p>Between them there had again fallen one of those long silences they
dreaded, but seemed powerless to prevent. As the voice of the
turtledove was lifted in the plaintive notes of nesting time, Adam
harrowed three acres of the plowed land and planted it in wheat and
corn. The perennial garden was flourishing, and there was nothing to
do. Adam said so one day, with an air of calm finality.</p>

<p>Robin regarded him uneasily. The time had not yet come when he
could sit down and write, though she had brewed an excellent ink, and
the paper waited on the desk in his room. She considered for a moment,
then said brightly, "Don't you remember what Myron used to say? How
when his friends got rich they first built a
beautiful <span class="pagenum">[pg. 124]</span>house, and then went
abroad for three years? Let us go traveling; wouldn't you like
it?"</p>

<p>The alacrity with which he acquiesced proved how well he liked it,
and he started out at once to get the burros, and make ready for the
expedition.</p>

<p>Robin baked and prepared as well as she could.</p>

<p>"It's a good thing I had a Southern grandmother," she soliloquized,
as she put her beaten biscuit in the Dutch oven and pulled the coals
over it. "And it's a good thing my mother crossed the plains and
learned how to make biscuit in the mouth of her flour sack, and," as
she rolled out some crackers, "it is a blessed good thing I went to
cooking-school, but I wish that, instead of being so particular about
the knobs on the candlesticks, <span class="pagenum">[pg.
125]</span>the Pentateuch had given Sarah's recipe for making cakes
with honey. Not that I have any honey, but I am sure we shall find
some on this trip."</p>

<p>When they were all ready, and the burros stood waiting at the door,
with Lassie jumping wildly about them, Adam wrote a placard which he
stuck in the framework of the door. The stock had been turned loose on
the mountain-side, and the house and stables secured as well as
possible against any storms that might arise. The kittens had
possession of one of the sheds. The puppies were to accompany
them.</p>

<p>Robin had put on her long unused shoes, and a new gown that she had
made out of a dark blue serge found hanging in her room. Adam looked
at her approvingly from under his wide sombrero. She turned back,
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 126]</span>after going a few paces, and
read the card.</p>

<div class="center" style="text-align:center;">
<p>WAIT!</p>

<p><span class="smcap">April</span> 5th.</p>

<p><i>Back in two weeks.</i></p>

<p><i>Look for smoke.</i></p>
</div>

<p>As she passed into the cañon that hid their home from sight, Adam
saw her brush her hand across her eyes.</p>

<p>&#160;</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 127]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterIX">
<h2>IX</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'Tis all
barren."

<span class="smcap">Sterne.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 128]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 129]</span></p>
<p>
They traveled a due west course, crossing the two ranges, wending
their way through dim defiles and along precipitous cañons, until they
saw the sea. Here its mood was summer-like. Even in the short time
that had elapsed it had worn itself a broad, smooth beach, and wide
tracts of land between the sand and the base of the mountains proved
that the earth had been thrown up, or that the water had receded. They
had not looked upon the ocean before for many months.</p>

<p>They picketed the burros on the rank, salt grass, and built their
camp-fire early, and while Robin set the potatoes baking, and began
her supper preparations, Adam went scouting
along <span class="pagenum">[pg. 130]</span>the coast. In less than
half an hour he came back with a quantity of clams which he threw down
before her as proudly as if they had been foreign battle-flags. She
gave a little feminine shriek of delight.</p>

<p>"Now I know why we brought that inconvenient iron pot," she said;
"bring it here, please."</p>

<p>Adam brought it, and watched her slice up onions and potatoes and
stir in the various ingredients.</p>

<p>"It is going to be the best chowder you ever tasted," she said,
"even if we haven't any bacon. When you write the veracious tale of
our adventures, Adam, don't put in how many things we ate."</p>

<p>"They might think it a voracious tale if I did," he answered,
dropping some more butter into his mealy potato. "Do you remember how
the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 131]</span>Swiss Family were always
worrying for fear they wouldn't have enough to eat?"</p>

<p>"Yes, and how they went out and killed an elephant for breakfast,
and a herd of wild pigs for dinner, and had a buffalo apiece for
supper. And don't you remember how, when the boa constrictor killed
one of their zebras, little Fritz asked pathetically if boas were good
to eat?"</p>

<p>They laughed over their supper, and then having made sure that they
were out of reach of the tide, and the fire would keep, and the rifle
was close at Adam's elbow, they spread their blankets and said "good
night." It had been an exciting day.</p>

<p>It was past midnight, and the moon was waning when Adam was wakened
by Lassie's cold muzzle against his face. He sat up and called to
Robin. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 132]</span>There was no answer, and
her blankets lay tossed on the other side of the fire. He started up
and listened. At first he heard only the sound of the sea; then there
came mingled with it the clear notes of her glorious voice. Holding
Lassie in check he went down to the beach.</p>

<p>Robin stood well out on the shimmering sand, the waves lapping
softly almost at her feet, and he heard the plaintive music, and
caught the words,&#8212;</p>

<pre>
  "Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove,
  Far away, far away, would I fly, and be, and be at rest."
</pre>

<p>Her voice quivered when she came to the words, "In the wilderness
build me a nest," but she sang on, and Adam recalled the words of hymn
after hymn, anthem after anthem, for <span class="pagenum">[pg.
133]</span>she sang nothing else. He heard the bitter cry of the De
Profundis, Handel's triumphant "I know that my Redeemer liveth," and
then she began, "He watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps."</p>

<p>His eyes filled, and he saw the tents of his regiment. She had
written by every mail, and across her letters, at the top or bottom,
she had put those five bars from "Elijah." Though he did not believe
it, for he had not the early Hebrew ability to see Israel in his own
race, and the to be spoiled Philistine in every Filipino, it had
comforted him in that sickening campaign. Surely, surely if he, an
American "non-com," had spared a Filipino now and then, He watching
over Israel had not been less merciful.</p>

<p>Her voice died away; it was the first time she had sung that year,
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 134]</span>though she was a very perfectly
trained musician. Indeed in the old days, Adam had first sought her
acquaintance because of her music.</p>

<p>Adam returned to the camp; he knew instinctively that she preferred
to keep this to herself. He was lying quite still when she came back,
and controlled every muscle when she bent over him. She regarded him
intently for a moment, then went to her blankets with a heavy sigh
that Adam knew was for him. She had sung out her own sorrows.</p>

<p>Their vigils seemed to do them both good, for they shook off their
melancholy tendencies, and before the end of the first week their tour
was beginning to be thoroughly enjoyable. They did not find cocoanuts
and bananas, but they did find plenty of strawberries, and long,
prickly vines <span class="pagenum">[pg. 135]</span>that would be
covered with raspberries, and wild grapes and choke-cherries and
currants, which they planned to transplant, for though the Western
coast was more beautiful, and in some respects more convenient than
their hedged in valley, they preferred the valley. Already it had come
to mean home.</p>

<p>They traveled about fifty miles southward, to the end of the
island, making desultory trips up into the mountains to see if
anywhere, on land or sea, there was a friendly wreath of smoke, and
every night their watch-fire glowed from the highest peak in their
vicinity. The island narrowed to a single range, detached peaks rising
here and there from the sea. As they rounded the southernmost point,
Adam said, "We ought to name it; that remarkable Swiss family always
named places."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 136]</span>Robin looked at the bare,
stone walls rising sheer above the waves three hundred feet, and her
lip curled.</p>

<p>"Let us call it the Cape of Good Hope," she said.</p>

<p>"In the name of wonder, why?" asked Adam, and she answered,
"Because we are past it," and then would have given anything to have
recalled the bitter words.</p>

<p>The Eastern coast was wilder and more picturesque, but the
traveling was correspondingly slower. Something in the formation of
the coast caused a terrific surf, and at many places there was
scarcely any beach, and they found themselves compelled to climb along
trails that made even the burros dizzy.</p>

<p>When they had been absent ten days, Robin said, "I begin to feel
like a grandmother; no, I don't mean that <span class="pagenum">[pg.
137]</span>I feel so old, but that I begin to long to see the chicken
and cat-children, and the new calf, and&#8212;everything."</p>

<p>Adam laughed, "I have been thinking we ought to hurry; that place
of ours is growing so entrancingly lovely in memory that last night I
dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls!"</p>

<p>They were not to reach home without at least one adventure,
however. A day or so later, as they toiled up a painfully steep
ascent, Lassie sounded the note of alarm, and catching up the rifle,
Adam ran ahead. As he rounded a point in the rocks, he came upon a
Rocky Mountain goat engaged in combat with a cinnamon bear. The bear
was hardly more than a cub, and was carrying off one of the kids. The
goat, horns down, was fighting viciously, though weak from loss of
blood.</p>

<p>It would be interesting to know <span class="pagenum">[pg.
138]</span>what one wild animal thinks when another wild animal, from
its point of view, comes to the rescue. Adam carried a lariat over one
arm. In an instant it flew through the air, dropping over Bruin's
shoulders. He released the kid, and tumbled backward over the cliff,
as much with surprise as by the force of the jerk on the rope, taking
that treasured article with him.</p>

<p>It took some time to capture the wounded animals, bind up their
hurts, and get them down the pathway leading to the beach. For there
was a beach, the best one they had found on the Eastern coast, and as
they put the goat and her kids down in the grass, Adam said
tentatively, "If you are not afraid, I can go home and get the horses
and the sleds. It isn't a great way, and I believe I
can <span class="pagenum">[pg. 139]</span>be back in three
hours,&#8212;I'm sure I can if the beach goes as close to our park as
I think."</p>

<p>Robin acquiesced, and as soon as he was gone began gathering
driftwood. When she had quite a little heap she made a fire with the
coals they carried in the pot. It is doubtless more romantic to build
a fire by striking flint rocks together, but a pot of coals has its
uses in a matchless universe. Then she found a long, stout club, and
put one end in the fire, where it smouldered sullenly.</p>

<p>"There now," she said conclusively, "if my bear acquaintance calls,
I will present him with 'the red flower.' I didn't learn the 'Jungle
Books' by heart for nothing."</p>

<p>Meanwhile Adam was striding over the beach at a rate that brought
him to the little cove and the high wall of <span class="pagenum">[pg.
140]</span>rocks that shut them in on the south in a little over an
hour. Two of the pups had gone with him, and they raced on ahead, as
he came in sight of the house. Everything seemed to have an air of
welcome, and the horses whinnied joyfully when he called them from the
gateway.</p>

<p>The pathetic placard was still there, and he crumpled it in his
hand, and went in and opened the windows. He milked one of the cows,
and gathering some green stuff in the garden started back with the
team and the sleds. Once down the steep decline, and over the rocks at
the south, they went on rapidly.</p>

<p>Although he had wasted no time, it was past one o'clock when he saw
her familiar figure afar off. She hurried to meet him. They had not
been separated so long before that year,
and <span class="pagenum">[pg. 141]</span>realized the unconscious
strain in the sudden revulsion. They said nothing of this, however,
though they clasped hands for a moment. Then Robin spoke to the
horses, and stroked their necks, as they bent their heads and rubbed
against her affectionately.</p>

<p>She had spread their table on a broad, flat rock, but before they
had their own meal, she warmed some of the milk, and they gave the
kids their first lesson in drinking out of a bucket. Afterward it took
but a few moments to strike camp. The burros were already packed, and
the goat with her kids, all hobbled, were placed in the sled, and the
cavalcade started on its way.</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 142]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 143]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterX">
<h2>X</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
Cling to thy home! If there the meanest shed
Yield thee a hearth and a shelter for thy head,
And some poor plot, with vegetables stored,
Be all that Heaven allots thee for thy board,
Unsavory bread, and herbs that scatter'd grow
Wild on the river-brink, or mountain-brow;
Yet e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide
More heart's repose than all the world beside.

<span class="smcap">Leonidas.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 144]</span></p>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 145]</span></p>
<p>"Do you know, Adam," said Robin, when they had walked a mile in
silence, "do you know that you are a fraud?"</p>

<p>"Well, yes," he responded, "but I didn't know you knew it. Is the
discovery recent?"</p>

<p>"Never mind about dates, but tell me why you didn't use the rifle
instead of the lariat? What did you take it for?"</p>

<p>"I took it for your peace of mind. I didn't use it for several good
and substantial and sentimental reasons. To reverse them, this last
year I have grown to understand your horror of killing things. We have
done very well without sacrificing any of our dependents; in fact, it
would seem <span class="pagenum">[pg. 146]</span>like murder to
slaughter the animals about us. And it's such a little world it seems
a pity to kill off any of its inhabitants. To tell the truth, I hope
the bear got away all right. This is maudlin, I know, but I don't want
my hand first to bring death on all there is left of earth.
Incidentally,&#8212;there are no cartridges."</p>

<p>He stopped the horses, while Robin readjusted the kids to make them
more comfortable, and took the lame one in her arms, then they moved
on.</p>

<p>Presently she said, "I am so glad of these kids!"</p>

<p>There was so much enthusiasm in her voice that Adam laughed and
asked why, and she answered:&#8212;</p>

<p>"Like you, I have sound and sentimental reasons. The sound one is
that we shall need their fleece unless,&#8212;why, goodness gracious,
Adam, there <span class="pagenum">[pg. 147]</span>is a baking-powder
can of flax in the dresser, and I never thought till this moment that
we can plant it."</p>

<p>"True," answered Adam, "but given flax or fleece, what would you do
with it?"</p>

<p>"Spin it," she answered sententiously. "Of course you think I
can't, but it happens that I once lived, when I was a little girl,
very near to an old woman. I don't refer to her age, but her ideas.
She carded and spun and wove and dyed all the family clothing. She
made her own soap and wouldn't have a stove in the house. She had
eight children, too, and they all of them turned out badly. I used to
go there off and on; I think she looked on me as a kind of sinful
amusement. Anyhow, she told me the world was going to ruin, and the
women were poor 'doless' creatures, who
couldn't <span class="pagenum">[pg. 148]</span>spin a hank of yarn, or
gin a pound of cotton, or heel a sock. She shook her head over me when
she found I couldn't knit, but she set a garter for me at once, and
during the seven or eight years that I went by her door on my way to
school she taught me all those marvelous accomplishments. I daresay I
have forgotten them."</p>

<p>"What are the sentimental reasons?" asked Adam.</p>

<p>She looked at the kid as it nestled against her shoulder.</p>

<p>"I have a fancy," she said, "that Nannette and her children are
going to minister to a mind diseased, and help pluck a rooted sorrow
from the brain. The world was getting too healthy. Has it ever struck
you that we have neither of us been sick for a day this year? I have
had to mother the chickens, but there has been
no <span class="pagenum">[pg. 149]</span>suffering. I'm not glad to
have pain come into the world, but it is good to be able to alleviate
it. We will put Nannette in a sling till her leg has a chance to set,
and by the time it is well she won't want to leave us. As for the
kids, I expect they will be like the plague of frogs, and we shall
find them in our beds and our ovens and our kneading troughs. Oh,
Adam, there is the house! Doesn't it look dear and homey?"</p>

<p>She put the kid back on the sled, and ran on, pointing out this and
that, the growth of the corn, the afternoon radiance, till they
reached their doorway. Then there were a thousand things to do. First
Nannette was made comfortable in the stable; then the chickens were
summoned to a meal of yellow corn, and when Lassie drove the cows into
the barnyard, each <span class="pagenum">[pg. 150]</span>was
congratulated in turn upon her calf, and those interesting, if wobbly,
bovine infants were carefully inspected. After supper they sat down
before the fire, very tired, but the nearest happy they had been in a
year. The dogs were lying about them, and the thump, thump of first
one tail and then another told the story of canine content, while the
kittens walked over them impartially.</p>

<p>"What a strange thing human nature is!" Adam said. "The only thing
needed to make our life perfect is that it shall not last. The moment,
if that moment ever comes, when it is real no more, it will become
ideal."</p>

<p>"I know," she said dreamily. "Things in the world used to be too
good to be true. This must cease to be, to be good at all."</p>

<p>&#160;</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 151]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXI">
<h2>XI</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
Yet if Hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none.
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

<span class="smcap">Poe.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 152]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 153]</span></p>
<p>"It is the first of May," said Adam. "It is a year ago to-day.
Shall we pass the gateway?"</p>

<p>"Not now," answered Robin. "Wait till afternoon. I am so busy this
morning."</p>

<p>She was sitting at the table teaching half a dozen little chickens
to appreciate hard-boiled egg. The wounded kid was lying in her lap,
one arm was about it, and an adventurous kitten looked over her
shoulder. As she tapped on the board with one slender forefinger, the
chickens, hearing their mother's bill, began picking up the fragments
of egg. She had rounded out wonderfully in a year, and Adam realized
for the first time that she was a very beautiful woman.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 154]</span>"Suppose," she went on, "you
begin your book to-day. Write your description of a year ago. It will
never be so plain again. There is plenty of time before we go.
Besides, if it is a dream, we shall want the written record to show
what dreams may come."</p>

<p>Adam hesitated a moment, then went to his desk. She had said truly,
the events of that day would never again be so clear, and as he began
to record them they marshaled themselves before him, until he found
himself writing with a dramatic power that fascinated and amazed
him.</p>

<p>It must have been some time afterward that Robin stole in and set a
glass of milk, some biscuit and strawberries, down on the desk beside
him and then went out, taking the dogs with her. He did not notice
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 155]</span>another sound until she called
him to supper.</p>

<p>While he did the evening work Robin dressed herself in the garments
she had worn the year before. As soon as she could make others she had
put them aside, awaiting the awakening or the rescue.</p>

<p>The heavy cloth skirt and the silk waist were put on with a strange
reluctance. Years ago the old doctor in "The Guardian Angel" said our
china became our tombstones, but surely our garments may become the
graveyards of our emotions, and hold sharp or sweet remembrances long
after they are past wearing. In spite of some tan Robin found the face
that looked back at her from her mirror infinitely more attractive
than it had been the year before.</p>

<p>Adam started a little when he saw <span class="pagenum">[pg.
156]</span>her. Then he drew her hand through his arm, and they went
to the gateway. As he opened the gate she turned and looked back. The
sun was behind the mountains, and the shadows were long and dark. They
heard the sounds of the various creatures settling into quiet for the
night, and Adam sent back all the dogs but Lassie. They went slowly
and wistfully. Robin stooped and kissed Prince on his white forehead.
As Adam closed the gate, she said half fearfully, "Shall we ever see
them again?" But he did not answer. He took her hand and led her to
the boulder.</p>

<p>Far as the eye could reach they saw what they expected to see. Half
a mile away the sea rolled in on a tolerably level beach; here it
thundered and roared against a sheer cliff. Among the rocks they could
see the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 157]</span>nests of many wild-fowl,
and gulls flew by them. They sat down on the rock and waited until
midnight. Then they went home. The dogs received them obstreperously,
and the kid from its corner bleated faintly. Robin bent over it
anxiously, then warmed some milk and fed it. When Adam came in with
some fresh water she was swinging slowly to and fro in the rocker,
singing softly an absurd nursery song:&#8212;</p>

<div class="poem">
<pre>
  "Sleep, baby, sleep.
  The stars they are the sheep;
  The big moon is the shepherdess;
  The little stars are the lambs, I guess.
  Sleep, baby, sleep."
</pre>
</div>

<p>"It needed to be cuddled," she said in as matter-of-fact a voice as
if all lambs were sung to sleep regularly. "You know dear old
Professor Carter said there would have been no
wild <span class="pagenum">[pg. 158]</span>animals if we hadn't made
them so; but now, if you will, you can put her with Nannie."</p>

<p>When he came back she had gone into her room. There was nothing
more for either of them to say. There was nothing to do, except to
hope for a sail, since they no longer hoped for an awakening.</p>

<p>&#160;</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 159]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXII">
<h2>XII</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken.

<span class="smcap">George Eliot.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 160]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 161]</span></p>
<p>The work on the book progressed rather slowly. Often Adam had to
refer to Robin when his memory was at fault. At first she had gone
away, to leave him alone with his work, but as he referred to her more
frequently, she sat with him, sewing while he wrote, a frame of
morning-glories back of her, or reading with the keen enjoyment of one
who renews a pleasure long foregone. When he seemed to be going on
smoothly, she sometimes stole away and gave herself up to long hours
with her violin.</p>

<p>One afternoon she tapped on his casement. His work was lagging, and
he rose gladly and went out with her. They walked up the path and
through <span class="pagenum">[pg. 162]</span>the gateway to their
boulder, and sat down.</p>

<p>"Talk to me," said Adam.</p>

<p>She shook her head. "About what, most worshipful seigneur? For I am
but a worm of the dust before thee, and all my tales are of the homely
tasks of baking and brewing. Naught is there worthy to be set down in
thy book." Then, with a sudden change of manner, "Oh, Adam, there are
eighteen new chickens to-day! The Plymouth Rock hen stole a nest, and
they came off this morning. And there is some news too. The flax is in
bloom. It is so pretty."</p>

<p>"When do you expect to weave your first linen?" asked Adam.</p>

<p>"Oh, I don't know, but it is good to know there will be some to
weave. Do you remember Andersen's story of the flax? I was thinking of
it this <span class="pagenum">[pg. 163]</span>morning as I pulled out
some weeds, and how when it was pulled up and cut and hackled, it
said: 'One cannot always have good times. One must make one's
experience, and so one comes to know something;' and when it is woven
and cut up and made into garments, it still says, 'If I have suffered
something, I have been made into something. I am happiest of all. That
is a real blessing. Now I shall be of some use in the world, and that
is right, that is a true pleasure.'"</p>

<p>"If one only knew he was to be of some use," Adam said wearily; "if
we could see the justification of our suffering."</p>

<p>"Then we should be as gods," answered Robin. "I like the song of
the flax, 'content, content;' and when the linen is worn out, it is
again tortured and beaten until it becomes
paper <span class="pagenum">[pg. 164]</span>whereon an eternal word is
written. I used to wonder why Andersen was given to children; not that
I wouldn't have them read him, but he is one of the profound thinkers
of the world. No one had Andersen clubs, or professed to find deep and
wonderful esoteric truths in his stories, but they are there. Do you
remember my girls' club down on&#8212;I don't think there were any
streets, but the inhabitants called the place 'Kerry Patch'?"</p>

<p>"Why, no," said Adam, "I didn't know you had one; why didn't you
tell me?"</p>

<p>"That was ever so long ago, ages and ages,&#8212;when you came to
see&#8212;" She paused a little, and then spoke the personal pronoun
that tells the whole story, for a woman can say "him" in such a way as
to betray unspeakable heights of adoration
or <span class="pagenum">[pg. 165]</span>abysses of loathing. She went
on slowly. "You were not one of my friends then; how could you be, if
there existed anything in common between you two? That sounds
dreadful, but you know all about it so well that subterfuges are
useless."</p>

<p>"To tell the truth, I never cared anything about him at all," Adam
answered quickly. "Like a good many others, I was enthusiastic over
your voice. He asked me to the house to hear you sing, and I went, and
was glad of the chance. And you have never sung for me once this
year."</p>

<p>"You never asked me," she answered. "'A dumb priest loses his
benefice.' But I was speaking of my club. We studied Andersen all
winter, and got enough more out of him than a lot of us who pored over
Ibsen, guided by a literary expert.
Andersen <span class="pagenum">[pg. 166]</span>has a more beautiful, a
more inspiring philosophy. Every nation has its story of Psyche, the
lost soul of things, but none is more beautiful than the tale of Gerda
and Kay. There were children in that club who were cruel, horribly
cruel, and one day when we gave an entertainment for them, one of the
older girls recited the story of 'The Daisy and the Lark.' They cried
as I had cried over it years before."</p>

<p>"I remember," he said. "It broke my heart when I was a little
shaver. I couldn't give so sad a story as that to a child."</p>

<p>"Oh, yes, you could," she said, "if the child needed it. The world
was cruel, cruel, Adam; I used to wonder sometimes why God did not
blot it all out, as He has blotted it out now. Once in another club, a
big, swell affair, there was a Humane
Society <span class="pagenum">[pg. 167]</span>programme. One woman, in
a Persian lamb jacket, spoke on the evils of the overcheck; you know
how they get that wool? And women nodded the aigrettes in their
bonnets, torn from the old birds while the little ones starved to
death, to show their approval, and patted their hands gloved in the
skins of kids, sewed in cloth soon after their birth so they couldn't
grow a fleece, and tortured all their short lives, and went home to
eat pâté-de-foie gras, and broil live lobsters, thanking God they were
not as the rest of men, if only they let out their check-reins a hole
or so. It was horrible,&#8212;the cruelties men practised to gratify
appetite, and that women were guilty of for vanity. I suppose I am a
monomaniac on the subject, but we never seemed far removed from
barbarians, when we went clothed in the skins
of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 168]</span>wild animals, and decorated
with their heads and tails and feathers, like so many Sioux chiefs.
The varnish of civilization isn't dry on us yet. Why, if a ship should
come here now, do you know what they would do first, unless they
happened to be East Indians? They would say they wanted some fresh
meat, and offer to buy Lily; she is the fattest of the cows. If we
wouldn't sell her, they would probably take her anyway."</p>

<p>"Kill Lily," cried Adam, angrily. "They'd have me to kill first;
nothing on this place is going to be slaughtered while I can protect
it." He went on more slowly, a little ashamed of his heat, "I feel a
sense of kinship with all these creatures that would make it
impossible to kill them. It's like the woman whose Newfoundland died,
and a friend asked <span class="pagenum">[pg. 169]</span>if she was
going to have him stuffed. 'Stuffed!' she said; 'I'd as soon think of
stuffing my husband!'"</p>

<p>Robin laughed, and leaning over tweaked Lassie's ear. "If we are to
be stuffed, we prefer to have it an ante-mortem performance, don't we,
little dog?"</p>

<p>The sun dropped behind the tall peaks, but its dying light still
covered sea and shore. They rose as if for the benediction, and looked
out at the waters before them. Then they looked at each other and grew
white to the lips, and Robin knelt down and flinging her arms around
Lassie sobbed and laughed. Adam never took his eyes from the coming
ship.</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 170]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 171]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXIII">
<h2>XIII</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
Every ship brings a word;
Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward well assured
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word they wish to hear.

<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 172]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 173]</span></p>
<p>The ship bore steadily toward them, but night was coming on so
rapidly that her lines were obscured. They could not even tell whether
it was a sailing vessel or propelled by steam.</p>

<p>"There's one thing certain," said Adam, excitedly: "it was coming
this way, but very slowly. I suppose that is to be expected of a ship
sailing unknown waters. They have nothing to go by, though they know,
of course, just what part of the round globe they are on."</p>

<p>She answered almost apathetically, as if she found it difficult to
talk, "It seems as if good sailors would lay by at night, when they do
not know their course, and there is land in sight,&#8212;land that has
never been explored."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 174]</span>"It does seem strange she
should come right on," he assented. "For surely no ship has ever
sailed these seas before. Perhaps&#8212;"</p>

<p>"Perhaps what?"</p>

<p>"Perhaps she has been clear around; perhaps this is the only bit of
land left above a world ocean."</p>

<p>Robin shivered a little, and Adam turned toward the beacon, that
had glowed in vain for a year. It had been built on a high,
altar-shaped rock, across the gorge, where it could be kept up without
leaving the park. Robin went with him, and they gathered a pile of
timber that insured the brilliancy of their signal until morning. Adam
piled on the logs till the blaze leaped far up in the darkness; then
they went back to the boulder and sat down to think and wait.</p>

<p>"See how the wind is rising," said <span class="pagenum">[pg.
175]</span>Robin, breaking a silence of an hour, during which even
Lassie had been motionless.</p>

<p>"But it is toward land," answered Adam.</p>

<p>"But the same wind that brings us the ship may dash it to pieces on
this awful coast."</p>

<p>"True, but she is far enough out to make herself secure. Oh, Robin,
suppose she sails around us and goes on!"</p>

<p>"That is impossible," answered Robin. "The people on that ship are
as anxious to find us as we can be to see them, if they are civilized
at all. Noah and Mt. Ararat are not to be named in the same day with
us."</p>

<p>Adam crossed the gorge and added fuel to the fire. For a time the
wind increased in velocity until a stiff gale was blowing, then, as
the small hours <span class="pagenum">[pg. 176]</span>came on, it
waned, and the beacon flared straight up once more.</p>

<p>"I wonder where's she from?" said Adam.</p>

<p>"I wonder where she is now," answered Robin.</p>

<p>"I feel sure," he said, "when morning comes we shall see her riding
the waves out there; and think of it, Robin, we can go!"</p>

<p>Robin made no reply, and her very silence made Adam repeat, but as
a self-addressed question, "Go where? Yes," he went on quickly, "go
where, Robin. Suppose the ship is all right, and that she stops, and
the crew are not pirates, and are willing to take us aboard, where are
we to go? Is there any place on earth that can mean as much to us as
this island? Suppose Asia, or Africa, or Europe are still in
existence, we should not regain our <span class="pagenum">[pg.
177]</span>friends and relatives, and life would be harder with
strange people, under a strange government, far more so than we have
found it here, even without so many of its luxuries."</p>

<p>Robin shook her head sadly. "At first, Adam. We should learn their
language and their customs. New friends are speedily acquired, and as
for relatives,&#8212;well, in the scheme of life relatives don't count
for much. There always comes a time when they step out of our lives,
anyway."</p>

<p>"But as to happiness?"</p>

<p>Her face paled a little. "Have you been happy here?" she asked,
without raising her eyes to his, and then went on, not waiting for a
reply, "If you have been, it has been in the care of our little family
of dependents, who do not need you half so much as the great family of
human dependents. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 178]</span>Rest assured
if there is a continent over there across the darkness, it is peopled
with beings who need the devoted and unselfish labors of such a man as
you. You would find your work easily enough,&#8212;the work you have
been saved for, the work you must do."</p>

<p>"But if there is no continent left?" he queried.</p>

<p>"In that case there must be islands; there were many mountains
higher than these, and they are peopled, no doubt. Shall we not go to
these other orphans, deserted by Mother Earth, our brothers and
sisters, through our common calamity?"</p>

<p>Both were silent, engrossed in their own thoughts. A return to the
world meant going back to the uncivilized rush of civilization. It
meant the eternal question of what shall we eat, and what shall we
drink, and where-withal <span class="pagenum">[pg. 179]</span>shall we
be clothed? It meant the old competition, the stern old law of the
survival of the brawniest. Above all, to Robin, it meant separation
from Adam, for once more in Rome, the customs of Rome must be
followed. To do Adam justice, this was a contingency which did not
enter his mind. As he had said before, whatever had put them in this
dream together would keep them there, so that when he thought of
relinquishing all the comfort and ease and quiet of his present life,
all the loving animals, the cosy little house, the tiny fields, the
blooming garden, it never occurred to him that he must relinquish more
than all these things, more than the peace and harmony, that which,
unconsciously, had come to be the very guiding star of his life.</p>

<p>"I wonder if whoever is left cares <span class="pagenum">[pg.
180]</span>for grand opera?" said Robin, rather grimly.</p>

<p>"Why?" asked Adam in so startled a voice that she laughed
hysterically.</p>

<p>"It's the only thing I know well enough to make a living at it,"
she said laconically. "I think the fire needs some more wood,
Adam."</p>

<p>As he replenished it, her words burned themselves upon his brain,
and he realized in an instant that a return to the old world meant
giving up this supreme friend, all that he had left in the world, all
there was for him in any world. The thing was impossible. He turned to
go back to her, some kind of an impetuous avowal on his lips, but she
had left the boulder and walked down almost to the edge of a
precipitous cliff which they had called "Lover's Leap," in a spirit of
badinage. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 181]</span>She stood there
quietly, watching the gray dawn, and his heart impelled him to go to
her and take her in his arms. As his love revealed itself to him in
all its power, it seemed impossible that he should know it now for the
first time. Why, why, had he been so blind? If the ship took them
away&#8212;</p>

<p>He walked unsteadily down to her, resolved to say nothing. If she
wanted to go, her wish should be sufficient.</p>

<p>The dawn came slowly, but it came at last. As the darkness lifted,
a slight fog settled over the face of the waters. Instinctively they
recalled that other night when they had watched through the mist and
his hand closed over hers. The sun was well up before the east wind
dissipated it, and left only the dancing waves, brilliantly blue,
stretching away into the dawn. On all that <span class="pagenum">[pg.
182]</span>broad expanse there was not so much as a cockle-shell
afloat.</p>

<p>Robin turned and looked to right and left in bewilderment, and then
at Adam.</p>

<p>His chest was heaving, and as his eyes searched her face he cried,
"Thank God," and gathered her up in his arms. She nestled there
without a word.</p>

<p>They crossed the gorge and scattered the brands of their
watch-fire, and walked on down to the cove. Suddenly Lassie came
bounding toward them uttering short, excited barks. They quickened
their pace, and as they came in sight of the beach discovered the
object of her alarm. Against a small promontory, lying on one side,
was the ship they had sighted the evening before. It was a hopeless
wreck, and had borne to them no living <span class="pagenum">[pg.
183]</span>thing. Yet it had served its purpose. It had revealed their
love for each other, and told them that they had hoped against a
second deluge in vain.</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 184]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 185]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXIV">
<h2>XIV</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
The truth of truths is love.

<span class="smcap">Bailey.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 186]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 187]</span></p>
<p>As Adam went about his morning's work he was filled with a sense of
gladness, an exaltation of life he had never known before. He
stretched out his arms, as if to let all the glory of the earth meet
the profounder splendor of his soul. As he walked down the garden path
he looked with affection at the flowers they had planted together. But
for the absurdity of it, he could have woven a chaplet of them and
worn it. But the world had reached that height of civilization where
the symbol of the glad and living thing was too emotional; always and
everywhere we preferred the dead thing, the skin of the seal, the
shroud of the silkworm, the straw that was left after
the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 188]</span>flowers were gone; and Adam
was still civilized.</p>

<p>He accepted his happiness without a question. It was too real, too
keen, too great a revelation for him to stop to analyze it. He knew it
in every pulsation of his heart, in every imagination of his mind, and
with the quickened senses of the lover he perceived that Robin's
feelings differed from his own. For a year he had been lost in
introspection; now they seemed to have changed places, and she grew
silent and almost reserved.</p>

<p>"What is it, dear?" he said. "No, don't try to evade an answer. We
must not stop being frank with each other now."</p>

<p>She did not reply at once, and when she did her voice was so low
that he had to stoop to catch the words. "Do you think you do love me
as fully as <span class="pagenum">[pg. 189]</span>you might have loved
some one else, younger and happier than I, better fitted to you? It
doesn't seem as if you could; you never did in the old days, you never
even thought of it."</p>

<p>Adam laughed lightly. "I beg of you spare me, for this isn't 'so
sudden' at all." Then seeing that her mood forbade jest, he went on
seriously: "Really, I mean it. It's true I never made you pretty
speeches in the old days, nor stopped to consider whether I might have
done so had things been different; but then I never made pretty
speeches to any one. From the very beginning I have taken you as a
matter of course. It always seemed as if we had known each other from
the very first. You entered into my plans as if you had known them as
you might if we had gone to the same little red schoolhouse. I wish we
had! <span class="pagenum">[pg. 190]</span>I'm jealous of the years
when I didn't know you."</p>

<p>"But a whole year," she said doubtfully. "Are you sure it isn't
just loneliness and propinquity?"</p>

<p>Adam kissed her fingers one at a time. "You are going to beg my
pardon for that some day," he said. "You are not very vain, my
sweetheart; how could I help loving you?"</p>

<p>"That's just what I am finding fault with," she said with a sudden
twinkle of fun in her eyes. "You have managed to keep from it so long.
But seriously, I am not the kind of a woman I should have fancied you
would care for. I am, at least I was, very weary of life; I knew too
much about it. And I am older than you."</p>

<p>He looked at her critically. "You were, a year ago," he answered;
"I don't know how much, two or three years&#8212;"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 191]</span>"Five," she said.</p>

<p>"Well, five; but this last year you have been growing young. The
very fact that you were tired of the old life made it less of a strain
for you to give it up. The tired look is all gone, even from your
eyes, whereas lots of gray has come into my hair. You had learned to
live in yourself and your music. My whole scheme of life was wrapped
up in the social existence of our time. In a way I lost more than you
did. I have learned a good deal this past year. Five years ago, if I
had loved you, there would have been many inequalities between us that
do not exist to-day. Now it seems to me we are as absolutely mated, as
much parts of one whole as the two halves of the brain, or the right
and left ventricles of our hearts. It is no disparagement of you or of
myself to say that no boy could <span class="pagenum">[pg.
192]</span>appreciate you. The measure of a man's manhood is his
ability to understand the highest type of womanhood. As to your being
worldly, that's all nonsense." He stroked her hair a few minutes in
silence, and then said, half quizzically, "You might question me, if I
said it, but this is what Balzac said of women like you: 'A woman who
has received a man's education possesses a faculty which is the most
fertile in happiness for herself and her husband; but that woman is as
rare as happiness itself.'"</p>

<p>She looked pleased, but she did not reply, and he went on.</p>

<p>"Do you still doubt me? Well, then, know that I have loved you from
the very beginning, for love, when it comes, is a retroactive law of
our being. If I had loved you less, if you had seemed less a part of
me, I might have realized it sooner."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 193]</span>She shook her head. "I have
known that I loved you for a long time, months," she said.</p>

<p>"Then you ought to have known I loved you," he answered quickly.
"Don't you think it is possible to love with our souls, our
subconsciousness, and realize with our slow brains, after months and
years, what our hearts knew at once? Even love has become more or less
of a mental process. We reason about things instead of feeling them,
and yet when we come to our last analyses we don't <i>know</i>
anything; we simply feel. When the scientist says, 'The am&#339;ba
moves out of the shade into the sunlight because it wants the
sunlight,' he bases his postulate upon what he feels, and believes
that the atom feels. This is all that he knows. We do not seek warmth
because we have calculated its effects <span class="pagenum">[pg.
194]</span>upon us, but because we feel cold. Oh, we have starved our
feelings to feed our brains, until the mind believes it is the
immortal part of us, instead of realizing that what we know, we are
merely re-discovering, while what we feel is our apperception of the
infinite. If we had the courage to be true to our feelings, instead of
our thoughts, I believe it would be a better, as it would certainly be
a truer, world."</p>

<p>"Do you really think more people are guided by thought than by
feeling?" she asked with a good deal of surprise.</p>

<p>"Perhaps not in one sense," he answered. "A great many people are
carried along by their impulses, their transitory emotions, which are
not, properly speaking, feelings at all. They make what some one calls
the 'fatal <span class="pagenum">[pg. 195]</span>error of mistaking
the eddy for the current.' But among educated people it seems to me
that we think too much, especially of our own thoughts, and feel too
little. All this year I have not said that I loved you; I don't know
that I have thought it, but I have felt and lived it. Sometimes I have
not been thoughtful&#8212;"</p>

<p>"You have always been too thoughtful," she interrupted.</p>

<p>"No, but when I have been inconsiderate it was because you were
myself, the best self that we overlook sometimes, but return to with
unfailing loyalty. You were not bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh;
that is a very low and material view of what you have been and are to
me, heart of my heart and soul of my soul. I cannot think of a life
apart from you, for you are my life.
Marriage <span class="pagenum">[pg. 196]</span>is not a matter of a
license and a ceremony and Mendelssohn and gaping crowds and a tour.
We do not need any one to tell us that what God has joined cannot be
sundered by man. All this year has been a long wedding of every
thought and feeling and desire, until I have looked into your eyes to
see my own wish. We have thought and thought, but that way madness
lies. Now I feel that all the world we have lost, lives for us in
every glorious possibility in each other. For I know that you love
me."</p>

<p>"Yes," she said, "I think I have loved you all along, but it never
entered my dreams that you could love me. Even now, when you tell me,
it does not seem as if it could be so, either by the mental process,
or by that of feeling."</p>

<p>He caught her in his arms and <span class="pagenum">[pg.
197]</span>kissed her, a kiss so long and tender that it left her
clinging to him, breathless and half awakened.</p>

<p>"Don't think," he said, "feel,&#8212;feel my heart and know that
every beat is for you, that every atom of me calls for you, and every
drop of blood obeys, as it would command you. I have tried to reach
the ideal of the love that says, not 'thou must be mine,' but 'I must
be thine,' but I have failed if you can doubt me."</p>

<p>She flung her arms around his neck with sudden passion.</p>

<p>"This is the greatest, the most perfect dream of all," she said; "I
think it must be heaven."</p>

<p>"A new heaven and a new earth," he answered gently.</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 198]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 199]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXV">
<h2>XV</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
Women alone know how much attraction there is in the respect
which a master shows them.

<span class="smcap">Balzac.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 200]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 201]</span></p>
<p>The derelict did not afford them much amusement or information. The
waves soon beat her to pieces on the savage rocks. Apparently she had
been a ship plying between Western ports, probably San Francisco and
Honolulu. In the wreckage washed up there were a few pounds of rice,
and some brooms of what they believed to be sugar-cane. There was
nothing else.</p>

<p>"Not even a lemon!" Robin said disconsolately. "Think of living all
one's natural life not only ten, but ten thousand miles from a
lemon."</p>

<p>Adam laughed sympathetically. "It's like a yachting party I
remember; <span class="pagenum">[pg. 202]</span>we found that the boat
we had engaged had been taken by somebody else, and our set had to be
divided. Later in the evening we discovered that we had all the sugar
and the other crowd all the lemons. ''Twas ever thus from childhood's
hour, I've seen my fondest hopes decay: I never wanted something sour,
but what molasses came my way.' Never mind, dear. We will go and plant
our sugar, and by the time it is ready to sweeten anything, a whole
cargo of lemons may have floated into harbor right at our door."</p>

<p>They crossed the ranges to the western coast, where there was lower
ground, better fitted to the supposed requirements of rice and cane,
and had a good deal of amusement out of their ignorance, neither of
them having more than a misty idea about
either <span class="pagenum">[pg. 203]</span>rice or sugar before they
reach the stage to be served together.</p>

<p>It was quite late when they were through and camped for supper.
Remembering their trip of a few weeks previous, that now seemed so
long ago, Adam said, "Are you too tired to sing, dear? It is so long
since I have heard you."</p>

<p>She stood up and thought for a moment, and then putting back her
loosened hair began with Bourdillon's "The night has a thousand eyes,"
and sang on and on. At last, turning to Adam with a little fond
gesture, and altering the words slightly, she sang:</p>

<pre>
  "Like a laverlock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride!
  All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side.
  What's the world, my lad, my love? What can it do?
  I am thine, and thou art mine; life is sweet and new.
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 204]</span>  If the world have missed the mark, let it stand by,
  For we two have gotten leave, and once more we'll try."
</pre>

<p>"'Once more,'" Adam repeated. "Once more, my darling! Oh, life is
sweet and new for us; we can afford to lose the world! When will you
come to me, love, when?"</p>

<p>She shook her head with a little wilful laugh, and all the
glistening glory of her hair fell about her like a wedding veil.</p>

<p>"Wait," she said; "wait a little. The flax is not nearly ready for
spinning yet; can a bride forget her attire? Besides, how can we
be&#8212;" she paused, and let her silence fill the gap, "when I know
we neither of us know any ceremony more dignified than hopping over a
broomstick?"</p>

<p>They started homeward, walking <span class="pagenum">[pg.
205]</span>slowly through the dimly lighted mountain gorges, talking
the ineffable nonsense that lovers never weary of. As they came to a
brook that rushed noisily down the ravine, Adam stepped across, and
held out his hand to her.</p>

<p>"Wait a moment," he said, "just where you are, dear, and say this
with me:&#8212;</p>

<p>"'Over running water: my love I give to you, my life I pledge to
you, my heart I take not back from you while this water runs.</p>

<p>"'Over running water: every seventh year, at this time of the year,
at this hour of the night, I will meet you here to renew my troth;
death alone to relieve me of this vow.'"</p>

<p>"Is that all?" she asked wonderingly. "Over running water, while
this water runs, while there is any snow in the mountains, or rivers
upon <span class="pagenum">[pg. 206]</span>land, or waters in the
seas, or clouds in the skies, when the world is old, and the sun
burned out, and time grows weary, I shall love you still, always and
forever. What is it all about, love?" He clasped her close, and did
not answer at once. "Don't you know that old Irish troth," he said,
"which would have been enough, even in that hard, unromantic world of
ours, to have made you legally my wife, if said over any Scottish
stream? I thought you knew; you are sure I would not trick you? You
know I could not?" He put her head back on his shoulder and looked
into her shining eyes. It seemed to him he could not bear even a look
of reproach. She raised her hands almost as if she were placing an
invisible crown upon his head, and let her arms fall about his
shoulders.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 207]</span>"Then I am your wife while
living water runs?"</p>

<p>"Forever and forever," he replied.</p>

<p>"Oh, wait, wait just a little," she answered.</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 208]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 209]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXVI">
<h2>XVI</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be
strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in
trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in
that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of
society.

<span class="smcap">Burke.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 210]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 211]</span></p>
<p>Adam found a note beside his plate in the morning. "I will be back
before five o'clock," it said; "I must think." He did not sit down to
the table she had spread for him, but called the dogs; Prince was
missing, and this was a relief to him. Nothing could happen to her
when Prince was with her. His first impulse was to follow her, but he
repelled it, and he too sat down to think. Lassie whined uneasily, and
he stroked her head absent-mindedly, and finally went out and tried to
work. The hours dragged away, and by four o'clock he could stand it no
longer. He went to the gateway. As he unfastened it, he saw her coming
toward him, but she <span class="pagenum">[pg. 212]</span>stopped and
he joined her, and together they turned back to the boulder. He
noticed that she was very white, and that her eyes looked as if she
had not slept, but he only said, "Have you thought?"</p>

<p>"Yes," she answered, "I have thought."</p>

<p>"And decided?"</p>

<p>"No," she said wearily; "we must decide together. We are not
children, Adam, nor are we in any way the prototypes of those first
parents of ours. I think sometimes that ever since their day their
children have been walking in a blind circle, eating not the fruit of
knowledge, but of the knowledge of good and evil. And what do we know,
you and I, after all these years? Are you sure what we ought to do? It
is as if God had taken us into a conspiracy to renew the old, or
create <span class="pagenum">[pg. 213]</span>a new, scheme of
existence. Possibly we are being tried, tested, to prove whether or
not we have learned our lesson. We must be brave enough to think, not
what is our will, but what is our duty. Think of the awful
responsibility, whichever way we choose."</p>

<p>"I can't," said Adam. "I can't think of anything but you."</p>

<p>"Nor I of aught but you," she said, moving away, "when you hold me
so. But we <i>must</i> think."</p>

<p>"I have," answered Adam, gravely. "All my life I have thought. I
have wanted the perfect companionship of the one woman in all the
world who could give it; I have always known she would come. I have
wanted a home; I have wanted to see my sons and daughters grow up
about me. I wanted to be a power for good in this world of which we
are a part, and <span class="pagenum">[pg. 214]</span>where we live
for some good purpose, if there be any purpose in life. I have so
conducted myself that I can look a good woman in the face, and offer
her my life, for whatever it is worth, without damning recollections
to come between us. My children will have a clean heritage of blood
and name. The family tree was scoffed at in America, but, thank God,
mine was an oak that had weathered many a gale. Not very great folk,
but honest, upright, fearless men and women, true to their king or
their country and their faiths; true to their ideals, too, when their
fellows were content with realities only. Any man who gives his
children such a heritage as that can say with more truth than Napoleon
said to his soldiers, 'Fifty centuries look down upon you.' I wanted
to make the world a little better for my life, and
I <span class="pagenum">[pg. 215]</span>wanted my children brought up
to feel that their lives belonged first to their country, to live or
die for her."</p>

<p>"I know," said Robin, softly; "I used to think I would drape the
flag over my baby's cradle, and embroider it on his pinning
blanket."</p>

<p>"We are probably a pair of sentimental fools," he went on, "but I
believe in sentiment. A man could not say this out loud because
sentiment was supposed to be essentially womanish. How those old
distinctions weary one, with their scientific data to prove that men
surpass women in the senses of feeling and taste, while women have
better sight and hearing, and so on through every conceivable
maundering of the human brain, forever harping on differences and
accentuating them, forever dwelling on sex distinctions and never on a
common humanity."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 216]</span>"It was a dreadfully
scientific age," she assented, "a generation fearfully and wonderfully
given over to statistics; and yet how many dreamers there were!"</p>

<p>"Yes, but in the twentieth century a young man dreamed dreams and
saw visions at his own risk. While he dreamed of the brotherhood of
man, his classmate with the corporation practice distanced him in the
pursuit of position. While he led himself through the valley of the
shadow of temptation, and feared no evil because of the Madonna vision
in his soul, even the Madonnas preferred Lancelot and Tristram to
Galahad. It wasn't an easy world for a man who wanted to keep faith
with himself. It was a pinchbeck world, of pretence and
pull,&#8212;that world that lies drowned out there. And yet I believe
it was infinitely <span class="pagenum">[pg. 217]</span>better than
the lost Atlantis, better than the deluged planet of Noah, nobler and
finer than the best civilization of which we have any trace. I never
despaired of it, and yet as I grew older I wondered if I was not
foolish and mistaken in daring to hope and to dream."</p>

<p>"I know," she said again. "I think I did despair, for it seemed to
me a dreadful, a terrible world. I used to wonder how conscientious
men and women could bring other human beings into it, to be and to
suffer and to faint in the frantic struggle for the unrealities that
made us miserable or happy. Consider how paltry they were. If we built
a new house, we were infinitely more concerned to see that the
contractor used pressed brick than we were to see that the
construction of our own characters was
true. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 218]</span>When we grew wealthy we
moved into houses of more stories; but how often did we say: 'Build
thee more stately mansions, O my soul'? I had as clean and strong a
heritage as you, but a different one. It is no use to comfort oneself
with nice little aphorisms about the needle's eye, and saws about
filthy lucre, and telling God's estimate of money from the kind of
people He gives it to; I tell you biting poverty is a terrible thing,
an unspeakable thing. It is a misfortune for a child to grow up under
a sense of injustice. I used to have times of revolt against it all,
when I hated with the blind, ferocious hate of a child, and I saw what
David never saw,&#8212;the righteous forsaken, and his seed begging,
not bread, but a chance to earn his bread, and begging for it without
being able to make just terms. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 219]</span>I
saw my home sold under the sheriff's hammer, and my parents struggle
all their lives because of the lack of money, when they had everything
else, nobility, character, truth, and education. My girlhood was a
long series of going-withouts. Finally I married a man who promised me
everything. Ah, well, when has the Apple of Sodom failed to deceive
the eye and undeceive the tongue? At least he did care for my voice,
and through that I learned that all those years I had carried in my
own throat the golden notes to have altered everything, and I sang a
little gladness into my parents' lives before they ended, thank
God."</p>

<p>"How did you come to sing in opera? Do not tell me if the
recollection is unpleasant. I wondered then."</p>

<p>"Because after&#8212;after things went wrong, I could not take his
money. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 220]</span>I knew how to sing, and I
loved it; but even there it was the same story of suspicion and
jealousy, till it seemed to me that hate and fear ruled the world. I
went to so many, many cities, but there was no city beautiful, and in
all the country I found no Arcady. I had money then, it is true; but
the jingle of the guinea doesn't help the artist who sings, or paints,
or writes, or plays, because God has put it into his soul to do this
thing; at least not after the very first, when it stands as a tangible
assurance of success. The cities were 'cities of dreadful night,' and
awful days; there were places that were not hives, but styes of human
beings, fighting for what they called life, to die, never having
lived. Sometimes I went into those jungles of civilization and sang to
them. It was the only thing I could give
them <span class="pagenum">[pg. 221]</span>all. It was there I got my
lesson. I had been singing 'All Tears,' when an old woman said in her
feeble, trembling voice, 'Ye mun loe us, young leddy, to come to sic a
place an' sing o' Him wha sa loed the warld that He sent His only
begotten Son ta it, for it's only great loe that casts out fear, and
this is a fearsome spot.' Since then I haven't hated anything, except
wanton cruelty, and I know love rules when it is fearless, but that is
very seldom. We were afraid to say, I love you, to anything more
sensitive than a stray kitten, though the world has hungered and
thirsted after the love we have feared to give even to our own
children. And yet just the love a man and woman may bear each other,
unconsciously, is enough to transform the earth. We have not been
cross to each other; I do not <span class="pagenum">[pg.
222]</span>believe we have spoken unkindly to anything this year."</p>

<p>He drew her into his arms. "Is it enough to regenerate the
earth?"</p>

<p>"And keep it regenerated?" she echoed. "Do you know?"</p>

<p>"Do you remember telling me, long ago, of a story in which the
woman said she had never seen but one man whose mother she would be
willing to be? And you said you felt so about me? I was very proud of
it then, but I am prouder of it now, since, feeling so, you cannot be
unwilling to be the mother of my children. You are not, are you?"</p>

<p>She nestled a little closer to him, and put her hand about his
neck. He stooped and kissed it, and repeated his question.</p>

<p>"Unwilling? No; how could I be? I never dreaded maternity except
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 223]</span>when&#8212;and that lasted such
a little while. I do not dread it now. It seems to me it would be a
blessed thing for us. But, Adam, Adam, tell me, for I have sat here
all day asking myself, whether it is a blessed thing to be born, or a
penalty that others pay."</p>

<p>"I think it would be a blessing to be your son," he said
steadily.</p>

<p>"And I think it would be a benediction to be yours," she answered;
"but he would not be yours nor mine, but ours, plus everything in the
past, verily heir of all the ages, and the ages were full of pain and
sorrow. Oh," she said passionately, "could you and I who love him so,
this son who is only our wish, could you and I who know the weight of
this weary world, bind it upon the shoulders of our baby boy, and send
him staggering <span class="pagenum">[pg. 224]</span>down the
centuries, the new Atlas of this old earth?"</p>

<p>They sat in silence for a long time. Then Adam said slowly, "I
don't know, dearest; but I do know that you are tired and hungry, and
I am going to take you home."</p>

<p>They rose and disappeared through the gateway together.</p>

<p>&#160;</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 225]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXVII">
<h2>XVII</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
Love gives us a sort of religion of our own; we respect
another life in ourselves.

<span class="smcap">Balzac.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 226]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 227]</span></p>
<p>Robin was shelling peas. Adam was reading her the story of their
deluge. He paused, dissatisfied, and said impatiently,&#8212;</p>

<p>"I have not described it at all. I have said all I had to say in
less than a thousand words; one would think such a scene deserved a
hundred thousand."</p>

<p>Robin smiled her little inscrutable smile. "I think you have done
it very well. It isn't intended to be scientific. You haven't told all
the strata that were turned skyward for a moment when that crevasse
opened between us and the town. You will find, if you turn to the
first chapter of Genesis, that there is very little detail; but I am
sure that the one line, 'He <span class="pagenum">[pg. 228]</span>made
the stars also,' is as eloquent as a treatise on the nebular theory.
If you were learned in geology and astronomy and so on, you would load
it down with an avalanche of scientific hypotheses, about which you
would really know nothing, except by deduction, and over which future
scientists would wrangle, part of them making you a god, and the rest
proving you a fool. Be content to 'climb where Moses stood,' and
produce literature."</p>

<pre>
  "'Why should an author fret about
      The judgment of posterity?
    It is not, and it never was,
      And it, perhaps, may never be,'"
</pre>

<p>quoted Adam, cynically. "I wonder what they will call us, Robin,
and who will lecture on my mistakes in seven or eight thousand years,
and show how it never could have happened. Do you suppose there is any
one else on earth? <span class="pagenum">[pg. 229]</span>Did the
Atlantis people leave any literature behind them?"</p>

<p>Robin shook her head. "Who really knows? God has not left Himself
without a witness, at any time. In some way the story of creation has
gone on and on. Every nation has its Eden and flood and Saviour.
Esther was the first, I think, to have her wish granted 'even to the
half of my kingdom,' and all the fairy stories since have borrowed the
phrase. Cinderella is almost as old as Job; and the Irish, the
Fenians, claim that Cadmus, the Ph&#339;nician, was one of their
forebears. Wide as race distinctions were, there were strange and
almost unaccountable similarities."</p>

<p>She went indoors to see to her baking, and coming back went on with
her work. Adam watched her silently for awhile, and then said
curiously, "I <span class="pagenum">[pg. 230]</span>wonder what you
have missed most this year?"</p>

<p>"Pins and needles, and until Christmas, books and shoes and
stockings and sugar and a cook-stove and a piano," answered Robin,
promptly. "I can live without the opera and a telephone, but if you
only knew how I cherish my stock of pins, and with what dread I look
forward to the day when, like a poor white trash family I used to
know, I shall refer to <i>the</i> needle. I used to think you could do
anything with a pair of pliers and a bit of wire, but I tremble lest
you may not be able to compass a needle." She looked up, and seeing
Adam's troubled face said quickly, "Forgive me for being frivolous; I
am so happy, I can't help it. What were you thinking of, Adam?"</p>

<p>He got up and walked away a few yards, and cut one of the long
thick <span class="pagenum">[pg. 231]</span>yucca leaves, and stripped
it down to the central spine, while he went on speaking to her. "I was
thinking," he said, "of what Mill said about inventions, and how they
hadn't helped the laboring man; that they had neither decreased his
number of working hours, nor increased his comforts, and wondering
whether it would be better for a new race to find an electric light
plant alongside their other plants, or whether they would better work
out their own salvation, a little at a time, by main strength and
awkwardness. I was thinking how strange our books would seem to men
and women who knew nothing of the&#8212;the late earth." He held out
to her what looked something like a needle threaded with coarse white
linen thread. "Will your Majesty deign to look at this?"</p>

<p>She took it, and looked at it
wonderingly, <span class="pagenum">[pg. 232]</span>and then ran in and
brought back a torn towel, and began mending it. "Why, it sews very
well," she said; "who taught you that?"</p>

<p>"The mother of inventions generally," he answered. "If you ever had
gone on the round-up, you might have had occasion for a needle and
thread when there wasn't any nearer than a hundred miles. But you
haven't answered my question."</p>

<p>"About inventions and so on? It seems to me you have to consider
the <i>raison d'être</i> of a people before you can tell the answer.
What is the use of labor-saving inventions, if the time saved isn't of
some great value? What is to be the chief end of man in a dispensation
that has no catechism as a guide-post?"</p>

<p>"A very different end from the old one," answered Adam, half
sternly. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 233]</span>"Work should not come
to him as a curse, nor as his greatest boon; at least, not hard,
manual labor. There should be work enough to insure ease and comfort,
and every one should work freely and gladly. I should educate the
individual; he should be strong of body and keen of mind, and should
feel that his talents were given him for use, not for concealment; he
should use his hands, both of them, and find delight in their work. It
is a beautiful world, it always was, but I don't know that the
steam-engine brought men's souls closer together, or that the electric
light let in any more radiance upon our minds, or that the great
telescopes made heaven any nearer. It should be a happier and a
healthier world, if it was no more."</p>

<p>"Adam," she said abruptly, "if we had children, in what religious
faith would you bring them up?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 234]</span>"I don't know; I never
thought about it very much," he answered honestly. "I have an ideal in
my mind, but I can't explain it. I believe in one source of life, and
therefore a common divinity."</p>

<p>Robin laughed quietly. "That is like the Hindoo proverb, 'That
which exists is one; sages call it variously.' That has been called
pantheism, and for that belief the Jews expelled Baruch Benedict
Spinoza from their synagogue. In our time there was a very learned
magazine published in its behalf, and I heard David Starr Jordan say
no man could tell whether it was a mere jargon of words, meaningless
and empty, or whether monism was the profoundest philosophy the world
has ever known."</p>

<p>"I don't care what you call it," said Adam, stoutly. "I am not
afraid of names, and I don't know anything <span class="pagenum">[pg.
235]</span>about any of those religions, pantheism, Spinozaism, or
monism; but I do know I would rather a child of mine saw God in
everything than that he saw God in nothing save his own narrow creed.
I would rather he was a pantheist than a Calvinist. Spinoza never
burned any one, did he, nor preached that hell was paved with infants'
skulls?"</p>

<p>Robin clapped her hands and laughed again. "I beg your pardon for
laughing," she said, "but the idea of Spinoza, the 'God-intoxicated
man,' presiding over an auto-da-fé is too absurd. If you only
remembered anything about his gentle, retiring spirit and melancholy
life; I think he was better known in our time than in his own, but his
philosophy does not satisfy me. I am willing to grant the identity of
life, and its divine possibilities, <span class="pagenum">[pg.
236]</span>but I cannot worship it as life itself, a mere
manifestation of nature. I know that there is such a thing as living
rock, and that it may be killed by a bolt of lightning as readily as a
tree; but this does not make it any more worthy of worship than I am,
and that is terribly unworthy. The rock and I are types of life,
stages in the development of life, but for my child there must be
something better. For the child I must lay hold on the everlasting
life; I must find the rock that is higher than I. I do not know of any
manifestation of that life so great, so godlike, and so lovable as His
who said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.'"</p>

<p>"But surely you do not believe in the Immaculate Conception?" asked
Adam, incredulously.</p>

<p>"I don't care anything about it, <span class="pagenum">[pg.
237]</span>one way or the other. It's the immaculate life that
concerns me. As you said yourself a few minutes ago, words cannot
frighten me. Am I going to stand carping, 'Can any good come out of
Nazareth?' What do I care if it comes out of Sodom and Gomorrah, if it
is good?"</p>

<p>"But you surely don't believe in the miracles?" he asked.</p>

<p>"Surely I do, in some of them at least. I have seen a miracle or so
myself. Besides, if you remember the greatest proof He gave was that
the gospel was preached to the poor. Buddha was a prince; he whom the
Jews expected was to reign as a king. What a fall was there! the
gospel of hope and joy was brought to the children of Gibeon, the
hewers of wood and drawers of water. The love of Christ has wrought
greater miracles than <span class="pagenum">[pg. 238]</span>He did.
Look at the arena in Rome. Look at the whole countless army of
martyrs. When Mrs. Booth died, the eighty thousand women that nightly
walked the streets of London rebelled, and for once the long aisles of
brick and stone were swept clean of that awful arraignment of
civilization. That was more of a miracle than satisfying three
thousand souls with food. At least, it's enough of a miracle for
me."</p>

<p>The tears came into her eyes, and she gathered up her pans and went
into the house.</p>

<p>&#160;</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 239]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXVIII">
<h2>XVIII</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
Are God and Nature then at strife,
  That Nature lends such evil dreams?
  So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life:

So careful of the type? but no.
  From scarped cliff and quarried stone
  She cries, "A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go."

<span class="smcap">Tennyson.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 240]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 241]</span></p>
<p>They were sitting in the doorway together. Robin rested her chin in
her hands and looked down the valley, the lines of perplexity
deepening in her forehead.</p>

<p>"If only we had an angel with a sword, or without one, to tell us
what to do," she said. "If only we were deeply religious with the
old-fashioned orthodox religion, that would enable us to believe we
were predestined not to be drowned&#8212;"</p>

<p>"Or if we believed in a personal God, without whom not a sparrow
falleth, though the waters cover the face of the earth and blot out
millions of His creatures," answered Adam. <span class="pagenum">[pg.
242]</span>"After all, can we do better than follow the dictates of
Nature?"</p>

<p>"Do you mean to look through Nature up to Nature's God?" answered
Robin. "How can we worship any God as pitiless as Nature? Nature is
strong, but is it our place to help her in her care for the single
type? Perhaps we are the trilobites of a new Silurian period; well,
trilobites were painfully common, but we need not be. Nature's laws
are immutable, so we have been told with wearying insistence, but
suppose you and I have wills as strong as Nature herself? Suppose we
ask what she has done for the humanity of which we are a part, that
she should demand fresh victims from us? Oh, I know; you will tell
me,&#8212;</p>

<blockquote><p>"'What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! <span class="pagenum">[pg. 243]</span>in form
and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in
apprehension how like a god!'</p></blockquote>

<p>"And I should answer,&#8212;</p>

<blockquote><p>"'What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the
son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little
lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and
honor.'</p></blockquote>

<p>"David or Hamlet, it comes to the same thing. Where are the crowns
now, and how can we say Solomon was not right when he said the end of
it all was vanity? What is Nature, and on what compulsion must we obey
her? The imperative mandates of our own hearts? But what if our hearts
are at war with our heads? Are we to follow no higher law than the
blind instinct that moves the house-fly? Or will we aspire to the
indomitable <span class="pagenum">[pg. 244]</span>soul of the
mocking-birds that feed their young in captivity until they see they
are prisoners for life, and then bring them poisonous spiders that
they may die rather than live under such conditions? Shall we give
hostages to Nature when she has given nothing to us?"</p>

<p>She was standing now and speaking with more vehemence than was her
wont. Adam caught her hands, as she flung them out with a gesture full
of scorn.</p>

<p>"Do you really think we have nothing? How many million lovers have
envied Adam and Eve their paradise? This Nature against which you
bring so railing an accusation,&#8212;has she taken away more than she
has given us? We had ambitions, you and I, but the way of ambition is
full of weariness and disappointment and
bitterness <span class="pagenum">[pg. 245]</span>of spirit. We did not
expect peace and comfort and joy, but work and turmoil. Our slates
were set with a sum&#8212;"</p>

<p>"Yes, a sum in vulgar fractions," answered Robin.</p>

<p>"Perhaps; it was a sum in which the unknown and unknowable quantity
determined the result. We had seen a good deal of what is called
life,&#8212;it is a good name to distinguish it from the death it so
much resembles,&#8212;and I am half inclined to think Nature has been
merciful."</p>

<p>"But if she was merciful to them," said Robin, quickly, "why were
we omitted?"</p>

<p>"She gave them oblivion, the hereafter, whatever comes hereafter.
She gave us each other. We were going to miss one another in the
careers we had mapped out. We might have <span class="pagenum">[pg.
246]</span>lost each other forever, or for æons of years. Nothing but
a general breaking up of everything would ever have flung us into each
other's arms. We were too much interested in my career, my vast
influence on the political situation, to consider any existence apart
from the setting we had chosen for the play. And, after all, what was
it, that career from which we hoped so much? I stood waiting my cue,
ready to act my part in the farce or tragedy, whichever it turned out
to be."</p>

<p>"I think it was more like a circus," said Robin.</p>

<p>"Very like a circus," he admitted with grim appreciation. "A circus
in which no one knew whether he was to be a ringmaster or a clown.
There were the financial tight-rope walkers, and the social
lion-tamers, and snake-charmers, <span class="pagenum">[pg.
247]</span>and the political acrobats whose falls were unsoftened by
any kind of network. There were heat and dust and discomfort, and
weary, wretched animals looking out of cages at other weary, tortured
animals, that were sometimes scarcely less pachydermatous than
themselves. I know the program we had mapped out, the triumphal entry,
the daring leaps, the cheers,&#8212;but was it worth while? After all,
does one care to be the champion bareback rider in life's hippodrome?
Nature swept away my sawdust ring, but she gave me heaven for a
canopy, earth for an arena, you for a queen. At times I am disposed to
take a fatalist view of the case, and think that God, or Nature, knew
there was no more to be done with the earth, not so much because of
its wickedness, as on account of its
stupidity <span class="pagenum">[pg. 248]</span>and cruelty. All my
plans had centered in a political career, and yet how could a man
touch politics and remain undefiled? Yes, I know there were honorable
men in politics, but they were lonely, and they hated with an
unspeakable hatred all the means that were used to keep them there.
And there were any number of men who had been honorable once. When a
man becomes possessed by the desire of place, his backbone becomes
elastic, and he stoops to things of which he had believed himself
incapable. I don't know what it is, but it weakens a man's moral
fibre, and breaks down the tissues of his will, and gives him mental
astigmatism. How dare I say I should have been any better than the
rest?"</p>

<p>"Do you remember your address, a year ago Flag Day, and the old man
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 249]</span>with the little bronze button of
the Civil War veteran, who stood in front, and shook hands with you
afterwards, with tears running down his face? And the applause? Can
you honestly say that you find 'to utter love more sweet than praise'?
You have told me of your dream of a home, but Emerson said, 'not even
a home in the heart of one we love can satisfy the awful soul that
dwells in clay.' Can it satisfy you, who hoped and expected so
much?"</p>

<p>He hesitated and did not reply at once.</p>

<p>"Are you sure you are not making a virtue of necessity?" she asked
a little bitterly.</p>

<p>"I think as much as anything," he said slowly, "I was excusing
myself for not having known all along that the real life, and the most
useful one, is <span class="pagenum">[pg. 250]</span>the one we could
have made together. Principalities and powers and empires and
republics have fallen. When God wants to regenerate the world, He
begins with the family. Now <i>I</i>," with unspeakable
scorn,&#8212;"<i>I</i> intended to begin with a different primary law.
I could have made a good home, but I was intent on making an
indifferent, honest congressman, or senator, or perhaps president. In
a way your home always meant a good deal of what I am trying to say.
You always had some one on hand you were trying to make capable of
great things by believing in them. You made us welcome, and were ready
to listen to our troubles, our literary curiosities, our musical gems
and our aspirations. Suppose I had had sense enough to refuse the
husks and choose&#8212;"</p>

<p>"Don't say it," she answered. <span class="pagenum">[pg.
251]</span>"Don't say it, even if you mean it, for I should have sent
you away, and have felt like reviling you for putting your hand to the
plow and turning back. Your ambitions were the most attractive thing
about you then. I hadn't pinned my faith on a primary law; I think it
was government ownership that I regarded as the great regenerator. I
am glad if my home seemed homelike to any one; it never reached my
ideal; and when a woman's home isn't the hub of her
universe,&#8212;well, she takes to china painting, or gossip, or
philanthropy; a man takes to poker or politics. I took to politics,
second-hand. Personally and concretely I abhorred the whole miserable
farce, but abstractly, and as a means to an end which I greatly
desired, I found it interesting. I admired you infinitely more
than <span class="pagenum">[pg. 252]</span>I liked you in those days,
but I wouldn't have married you under any circumstances."</p>

<p>"Why?"</p>

<p>"First, because I didn't want to marry any one; I didn't want to
care that much. And, secondly, because I wanted you to devote yourself
to your country, and had you possessed a family your devotion would
have been divided. I don't see," she went on reflectively, "how you,
who know so well how empty it all was, and how hopeless the endeavor
to lift it an inch,&#8212;I don't see how you can think anything would
justify us in making it go on."</p>

<p>"But, on the other hand," he said, "are we justified in snuffing it
all out? There was so much that was beautiful, and the possibilities
were so glorious! Sweetheart, I shall not
believe <span class="pagenum">[pg. 253]</span>you love me if you think
the world all cold and dark. I believe now the one law it needs, or
has ever needed, is love, the fulfilling of the law."</p>

<p>Robin shook her head, and there was a pathetic quiver about her
sensitive mouth. "Is it so? We have sung, ''Tis love, it makes the
world turn round,' but is it so? Would you give your world that one
great principle as the whole of its code of laws?"</p>

<p>"Yes, I would," he answered sturdily. "I should not revive a single
law, not even the Ten Commandments, nor any of their variations. You
have to read the statutes provided for unnamable crimes to understand
just how bad mankind could be. I should not bother my world with
Draco, or Solon, or Justinian, or Coke, or
Blackstone. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 254]</span>I should give it the
code of Christ, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do
ye even so unto them.' To love one's neighbor as oneself,&#8212;isn't
that code enough for any world? And I should make the neighbor include
every dumb creature."</p>

<p>She turned to him, her face radiant with love and trust.</p>

<p>"There is no difference between us in reality," she said: "you
would found your political economy on the teachings of Christ, and I
my religion. If we realize the unity of life, we must make our
religion our law, and our law our religion. Sometimes I think the hand
of the Lord is in it, for surely, surely, there never was a nobler man
on earth than you."</p>

<p>&#160;</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 255]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXIX">
<h2>XIX</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two.

<span class="smcap">Kipling.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 256]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 257]</span></p>
<p>"Do you remember the name of that man we knew," said Adam one day,
"who wrote a book to prove the immortality of the body? He did prove
that various people had lived well on to two hundred years. If we were
sure of that, we might get the earth very fairly started."</p>

<p>Robin laughed. "We are not apparently growing any older," she said;
"but we can hardly count on more than a hundred years each."</p>

<p>"There is one thing you haven't taken into consideration," said
Adam. "Our children would be several thousand years ahead of the
original children of the Garden; they would be further along than you
and I in a good many ways."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 258]</span>"No," she said, "I haven't
forgotten, but I do not know how much of a load they would bring with
them into the world. We called it heredity, the Hindoos called it
karma, and, though that is different, educators called it the
recapitulation theory."</p>

<p>Adam shook his head. "I understand heredity," he said, "but karma
and recapitulation are too much for me."</p>

<p>"Karma is our heritage from former existences," she answered, "that
may have been lived here or elsewhere. It is the sum of our past, good
and bad. It is based on a belief in reincarnation, and it is the law
that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. It is justice
untempered by mercy, and it is at variance with the doctrine of
vicarious atonement, though one may believe it and worship Christ as
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 259]</span>the highest type of love the
world has ever known. Naturally, it does not appeal to the people who
are willing to let some one bear the cross for them, and yet I have
wondered whether, if we were sure we should not gather figs from
thistles, we should sow the thistles so freely. The recapitulation
theory makes the child pass through the evolutionary stages of the
nation or nations he represents. It has a kind of seven ages of man of
its own, and brings him down through all phases,&#8212;the savage, the
hunter, the explorer, the conqueror, the builder. I don't pretend
fully to understand it. I heard one of its ablest exponents say once,
'The soul of the German nation is in the German boy.' Heredity curses
or blesses, sometimes both. Before any of these theories prospective
parents might well hesitate."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 260]</span>"Which do you believe?" asked
Adam, curiously.</p>

<p>She reflected a moment. "A little of all three; not all of any of
them; one would have to be a profound student to understand fully what
their adherents claim for them. Heredity plays strange freaks now and
then. It is easier to account for Abraham Lincoln by the second theory
than by either of the others. His shiftless, untidy mother and
commonplace father do not explain such a soul as his; nor was there
any reversion in his childhood to the original savage instincts that
make children dismember grasshoppers&#8212;rather the reverse. I like
better to think that, like that other Deliverer, who was a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief, he came to do the will of his and
our Father which art in heaven,&#8212;came <span class="pagenum">[pg.
261]</span>gladly, freely, knowing the end from the beginning."</p>

<p>Adam sat up suddenly and looked at her with startled eyes. "Then
you think&#8212;you mean&#8212;you don't believe&#8212;surely you
don't believe we have anything to do with our coming here?"</p>

<p>She smiled. "Surely I do. Our coming is sad enough when we do it
voluntarily. It would be quite intolerable to have existence thrust
upon us. Besides, it seems blasphemous to me to believe that God has
given to every human being the power to bestow an eternal existence.
The responsibility is great enough when it is simply a matter of so
living that noble souls may seek to be born of us, and undertaking to
give them sound minds and bodies."</p>

<p>Adam looked unconvinced and <span class="pagenum">[pg.
262]</span>troubled. "Where on earth did you get all that?" he
asked.</p>

<p>"Well, it is to my mind only an elaboration of Descartes' 'I think,
therefore I am.' I am, presupposes that I have been, and will be. If
you can't destroy one drop of water, you can't destroy me. If you drop
the water on red-hot iron, it instantly becomes an imperceptible mist,
the mere ghost of itself, but it will ultimately become fluid again.
It seems to me that the scientific fact gives a sound basis for the
psychologic probability."</p>

<p>"But think of all the miserable human beings born daily. Do you
think any one would choose such surroundings?"</p>

<p>"You and I never wanted to go anywhere badly enough to crowd
ourselves under the cow-catcher, or upon the trucks, but there were
those who did. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 263]</span>We didn't want to
see the parade badly enough to stand on the street corner for hours;
but you worked your way through college, and we have both sat in the
top gallery to hear 'Tannhäuser.' We were willing to put up with the
whips and scorns, which is another way of saying the garlic and
tobacco, for the sake of the music. In any event the experiment was of
brief duration. No one gets more than a fragment in an ordinary
lifetime."</p>

<p>"If you think that," said Adam, "I can't see that there is any
responsibility about it. We should not thrust life on any one."</p>

<p>"True," she assented. "Your position is unassailable, but still it
seems to me the responsibility remains. In the first place, granting
that my hypothesis is true, how can we tell
whether <span class="pagenum">[pg. 264]</span>to live is gain? How do
we know that the next generation would be better and stronger than we
are? Moreover, I only give this to you as my idea. I do not say it is
true; I believe it to be so, but I do not know anything whatsoever
about it. I can't prove it, and it may be transcendental rubbish. I
rather imagine you think it is."</p>

<p>"Not exactly that," he said, coloring and laughing, "but certainly
it is rather amazing when one hears it for the first time. I daresay I
shall come to believe it too. So far as I can see, you are about as
unorthodox as I am."</p>

<p>"I have times of relapse," she said. "Then I think we are being
tempted like the first Adam and Eve. They were commanded to multiply
and reign. You and I wouldn't ask anything <span class="pagenum">[pg.
265]</span>better, but as a rule one's duty is not attractive. It
seems to me just as likely that we are to prove that the lesson is
learned, and a man and woman may love each other unselfishly and
nobly, foregoing their own desires to save others. Under the old
dispensation it was said, 'Greater love hath no man than this;' is it
not possible now that the greatest love is that which lays down its
life untransmitted? If Christ could pray that the cup of suffering and
death might pass from Him, dare we press the bitter draught of being
to other lips?"</p>

<p>"Dare we dash the full goblet of joy and opportunity from them?"
asked Adam, gravely.</p>

<p>"I wish I knew," she said. "I wish I knew!"</p>

<p>"Have you ever thought what it will mean," he said, "if we adopt
the <span class="pagenum">[pg. 266]</span>other alternative? Have you
thought of the desolation and loneliness of growing old and helpless
and finally&#8212;" He stopped, and she threw out her hands as if to
ward off the thoughts he called before her.</p>

<p>"Oh, yes, yes, I have thought, and it is terrible. I keep
remembering a picture I saw in the French Exhibit. It was of a man and
a woman; the woman was dead, and he had dug her grave, his broken
sword lay at his side, and he had wrapped her in his coat, and begun
to cover her over. He could not go on, and knelt, looking at her with
a despair on his face that has haunted me ever since. The name, Manon
Lescaut, meant nothing to me then, but the story of the picture was
enough by itself. All last year I kept seeing that terrible picture.
Sometimes <span class="pagenum">[pg. 267]</span>it was you, sometimes
it was I, that dug the grave and went mad looking into it."</p>

<p>"I should not bury you," said Adam, grimly. "I should carry you to
the cliff and take you in my arms and jump. The sea is deep and cruel
there."</p>

<p>"Sometimes," she hesitated a moment, then went on,&#8212;"sometimes
I think that would be the best way for us now, I mean if we decide we
have no right to be happy in the old way; for I should be afraid we
could not always be strong."</p>

<p>"Very well," he answered; "when we decide, it shall be literally
life or death."</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 268]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 269]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXX">
<h2>XX</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
The ant and the moth have cells for each of their young, but
our little ones lie in festering heaps in homes that consume
them like graves; and night by night, from the corners of
our streets, rises up the cry of the homeless,&#8212;"I was
a stranger and ye took me not in."

<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 270]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 271]</span></p>
<p>For a time they busied themselves with different things about their
little home, worked in the garden, and held a round-up of their stock
that they might know the extent of their wealth; and because, in a
life quite apart from human beings, animals come to take their place
to a greater extent than might seem possible.</p>

<p>It was a very pleasant time. Everything seemed so gentle, so
willing to be friends, and so certain of their good-will.</p>

<p>"You used to be a Kipling fiend," said Adam, one morning, when they
had been salting the cattle, and were resting before going home.
"Didn't he write a Jungle tale about 'How <span class="pagenum">[pg.
272]</span>Fear Came'? He ought to be here now to write another to
show how Fear might go."</p>

<p>"It seems to me he did," Robin answered, running her fingers
through the short, curly forelock of a colt that stood placidly
licking her hand. "I wonder that they don't remember longer, or
perhaps they know that we think they are folks. Really, I think we
ought to hold a reception, a kind of salon, once a week, so as to keep
acquainted with our neighbors."</p>

<p>"You are an absurd child," he said, laughing; "but does that mean
that you have really decided to go on living?"</p>

<p>"I don't know," she said. "What did we determine? By the way, which
side of this question are you on?"</p>

<p>"Both," he said decidedly.</p>

<p>"Oh! then we can't do like those men <span class="pagenum">[pg.
273]</span>Cooper told about, in 'The Pioneers,' wasn't it? who argued
and argued every night until at last they convinced each other, and
then started in to argue it out again."</p>

<p>"No," he answered, "I rather think that we are answering ourselves
rather than each other, anyhow. Robin, where was 'the land of
Nod'?"</p>

<p>"That is one of the questions that I was sent to bed for asking a
preacher who was visiting at our house, when I was about seven years
old. They hurried me hence before he had a chance to answer, so I
never found out. But I know what you are thinking of, and I have
thought of it too. Perhaps there isn't any land of Nod, or any land at
all. And I have thought, also, how it would be if one of us died and
left the other with little children. You might take
my <span class="pagenum">[pg. 274]</span>body and jump off the rock,
but you couldn't take them too, and still less could you leave
them."</p>

<p>"I have thought of the risk to you," he said, "and felt that not
even for the sake of a child would I let you come so near death."</p>

<p>She laughed a little. "That is really funny," she said. "You must
have been reading Michelet; I never thought of that at all. I am very
well and strong, and my habits and my clothes are not such as to
hamper my life nor endanger that of another. There is next to no risk,
so far as that is concerned, certainly none I would not gladly take.
But I have dreaded afterwards, when the child might fall ill and need
help that we could not give it."</p>

<p>"Because there are no doctors in the world?" said Adam, with a
touch <span class="pagenum">[pg. 275]</span>of cynicism. "I don't know
that we are not better off without them. The greatest of them
confessed that it was guess-work. The best doctors I ever knew were
always trying to make their patients live more simply, take more
exercise, and give nature a chance; they never resorted to medicine
until there was nothing else to do. If all the germs and microbes have
gone with them, the earth can stand the loss. The main thing is to be
well born, and when the body is healthy and leads a natural life,
while it may know pain, it need not be a prey to disease. Very few
children had a heritage worth having. It had been bartered away. No
wonder we were taught to say, 'There is no health in us.'"</p>

<p>"Do you remember Gannett's 'Not All There'?" she asked soberly. "I
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 276]</span>am not sure I can recall it, but
it began this way:&#8212;</p>

<pre>
  "Something short in the making,
    Something lost on the way,
  As the little soul was taking
    Its path to the break of day.

  "Only his mood or passion,
    But it twitched an atom back,
  And she for her gods of fashion
    Filched from the pilgrim's pack.

  "The father did not mean it,
    The mother did not know,
  No human eye had seen it,
    But the little soul needed it so.

  "Thro' the street there passed a cripple
    Maimed from before its birth;
  On the strange face gleamed a ripple
    Like a half dawn on the earth.

  "It passed, and it awed the city
    As one not alive nor dead;
  Eyes looked and burned with pity.
    'He is not all there,' they said.

<span class="pagenum">[pg. 277]</span>  "Not all! for part is behind it,
    Lying dropped on the way;
  That part&#8212;could two but find it,
    How welcome the end of day!"
</pre>

<p>For a long while neither spoke, then Robin went on. The colt had
wandered back to its mother, and she sat with her hands clasped, and
her eyes looking far out to sea.</p>

<p>"I don't blame people for dreading the responsibility, nor even for
shirking it, when I think of all the conditions we had to face. Men
who thought they had hedged their trades about with so much skill that
they had banished competition, found that they had only succeeded in
bringing into the field the machine that banished them. And everywhere
there was such ghastly poverty,&#8212;poverty of body and brain and
soul. We had gone back to patrons and
patronesses. <span class="pagenum">[pg. 278]</span>Men or women did
not do anything of themselves any more,&#8212;they did not sing or
play, or give a reading, or exhibit a painting. They starved, or they
performed or exhibited 'under the auspices of.' It has always been the
same. Given a pure democracy, and demos reigns sooner or later. The
shiftless go to the bottom, the thrifty to the top, and then like the
upper and nether millstones, they grind everything between them. That
which is below cries, 'Alms!' and that which is above responds,
'Largesse,' and the voice that cries, 'Justice,' is stifled between.
The stone that crushed from above and the rock that ground from below
were very near, and men dreaded them, for when the grist is ground,
and flint strikes upon flint, the conflagration is at hand. Do you
think I am talking like a Populist <span class="pagenum">[pg.
279]</span>campaign book? I only know what I saw, and what the poets
have said. I wouldn't dare to be as radical as Lowell, nor as bitter
as Tennyson, nor as savage as Carlyle, or Ruskin, or Hugo. We had
overcome the sharpness of death, but whence could we hope for
deliverance from the sharpness of living?"</p>

<p>"We have been delivered," said Adam, slowly, "but you don't seem
disposed to be the Miriam of this Israel&#8212;limited."</p>

<p>"Well, no," answered Robin. "I should like to believe that you and
I were rewarded for our superhuman excellence by being saved when
Pharaoh and his multitudes went under, but a somewhat wide
acquaintance with other people forbids. On the other hand, we can't
have been left on account of our superlative badness.
Truly, <span class="pagenum">[pg. 280]</span>Adam, don't you feel
sometimes as if you would rather have died with the rest?"</p>

<p>He hesitated. The question was so unexpected, and so fraught with
possibilities. She watched the struggle in his face and honored him
for it. He put back a stray lock of hair and kissed her forehead
before he answered.</p>

<p>"The streak of cowardice that we all of us have in us," he said
finally, "the distrust of myself, and the doubt of all systems of life
of which I know anything, prompts me to answer yes; for I think even
if we had died, you and I would still be together. I think sometimes
we have been, in the past, but whether we have or not, I know we shall
be in the future. So while the mental part of me,&#8212;which it seems
to me is the weakest and most <span class="pagenum">[pg.
281]</span>contemptible part of man, because it is always reasoning
him out of what his soul tells him is true,&#8212;while the mental
part of me might find it easier to be dead than to know what we ought
to do, everything else in me rejoices. I know that in the great plan
we have a part, it seems to me a very happy and beautiful part. In all
our world there is no cause for anger or hatred or sin. There is
friendliness and content and gentleness and love all around us; look
up, dear, and see how near heaven seems."</p>

<p>But though she looked up, she saw only the light in his eyes.</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 282]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 283]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXXI">
<h2>XXI</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
"We're all for love," the violins said.

<span class="smcap">Sidney Lanier.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 284]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 285]</span></p>
<p>Robin's music was a source of great delight to both of them. There
was such a sense of time, infinite and unlimited, that they ceased to
be the hurrying mortals of earth. The joy of life crept into their
hearts, and they grew young with the new world.</p>

<p>One evening they watched the full moon come up over the mountains.
She had been playing a few desultory airs, and looking up
asked,&#8212;</p>

<p>"Who is it says 'music is love in search of a word'?"</p>

<p>"If you don't know, I'm sure I don't," answered Adam, laughing. "Do
you know that you quote entirely too much?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 286]</span>"Oh, yes," she said lightly.
"I always knew that if I ever should break into print, the critics,
supposing they ever deigned to notice me, would say, as they said of
Lubbock's 'Beauties of Life,' that it wasn't a book, but a compendium
of useful quotations. But do you really dislike quoting? I think it
takes as much or nearly as much originality to quote well as to
invent."</p>

<p>"Oh, no!" he interposed.</p>

<p>"No? Well, it seems so to me. I think the thing first myself, that
is original so far as I am concerned, though it may be old as the
hills, and then it comes to me afterward, in a dozen ways, perhaps, as
other people have said it. I realize that in the kaleidoscope of life
the pattern before my mind's eye approximates that which others have
seen. We don't say a man knows too many synonyms
or <span class="pagenum">[pg. 287]</span>antonyms, and I don't see
much difference."</p>

<p>"I have a misty memory that quotation is said to be a confession of
inferiority," answered Adam.</p>

<p>"That's Emerson," she said, laughing; "but he also says, 'genius
borrows nobly,' and I am willing to confess inferiority to a great
many people; all that implies is that one should only quote well. If
it wasn't that I'm not sure of the words, and that I can't verify
them, I should confound you with a citation from Disraeli."</p>

<p>"Go on," said Adam, lazily; "I don't mind being crushed."</p>

<p>"It is to the effect that people think that where there is no
quotation there must be great originality. Then he says, 'the greater
part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original that no
one cares to imitate them; <span class="pagenum">[pg. 288]</span>and
those who never quote are seldom quoted.' That's about it. Now are you
answered?" She laughed gleefully. "It is delicious to disagree with
you. I had almost forgotten that it was possible."</p>

<p>He echoed her laugh with the carefree heartiness of a boy. "I am
going to make a riddle," he said. "Prepare yourself; this is the first
conundrum of the new world. Why is it better to disagree than to
differ?"</p>

<p>She made a little grimace. "It's a wonder the Sphinx does not rise
from the other side of the world and eat you," she said with derision.
"Anybody who loved anybody could answer such a poor little excuse for
a riddle as that; besides, it sounds like an extract from somebody's
'First Easy Lessons in Rhetoric.' Don't you see that I can
disagree <i>with</i> you, while I must <span class="pagenum">[pg.
289]</span>differ <i>from</i> you? That is too disgracefully easy.
Indeed, Adam, that riddle of yours brings back every doubt, for they
say&#8212;scientists and ologists and learned people, you
know&#8212;that there is hope for delinquents and defectives, but none
for degenerates, and that is an awfully degenerate joke."</p>

<p>"Play for me," he said, "and don't call names."</p>

<p>She lifted the bow and drew it across the strings in a series of
cadences so wildly mournful that he shuddered. She put the bow down,
and laid her hand upon the strings to still them. In the old days she
had been given to sudden changes of mood, but of late she had been
almost serene.</p>

<p>"What is it?" he asked gently.</p>

<p>"Oh, nothing,&#8212;everything! I was thinking of another thing
which those <span class="pagenum">[pg. 290]</span>wise ones said," she
answered, with more bitterness than she had shown for many months. "It
was that word 'degenerate' brought it back. You know birds are a very
low order of being, a branch of the reptile family, in truth, and I
have heard people say that musicians are generally lacking in
something. They either have no moral or financial sense, and cannot be
bound by ordinary rules. And I am musical to the very tips of my
fingers. It is as if I could hear the song of the silence,&#8212;I
feel its vibrations like those of a great organ."</p>

<p>She walked up and down, her hands back of her head, and the
moonlight shining on her upturned, troubled face.</p>

<p>"There is another scientific fact you forget," he said.</p>

<p>She stopped to listen, and he went on.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 291]</span>"When a race has run its
course, nature cries 'habet,' and nothing can alter its fate. It was
not alone the merciless onslaughts of the white man that exterminated
the buffalo. They died, and none came to take their places. They
vanished, less on account of man's cruelty than by reason of their own
sterility. Degenerates or regenerates, can't we leave the decision
with a power that forever builds or destroys, in accordance with a law
we do not understand, a higher law that comes from the source of all
law, whatever that source may be? Don't think any more, but play for
me. In spite of my lecture, I will quote too; my mother used to sing a
hymn that went like this,&#8212;</p>

<pre>
  'I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings,
  And vie with Gabriel while he sings,'&#8212;
</pre>

<p>Do you know it?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 292]</span>She began the old tune,
"Ariel," and then wandered on, playing many airs that brought back
forgotten days. Adam threw himself down on the grass to listen, half
jealously, for she seemed to forget everything. She had seated herself
on a great boulder, and, leaning back against it, her eyes looking
into the blue depths above her, she played on and on. The old tunes
were merged in new ones, and the high sustained notes of the
Cavalleria, the subtle minor of Wagner, the exquisite sweetness of
Beethoven and Schubert filled the moonlit cañon, and still she played
on, melodies new to Adam, intoxicating, full of a wild ecstasy, that
filled his very soul, and thrilled through him till he felt all power
of resistance swept away. Every other desire in the world was lost in
the supreme and <span class="pagenum">[pg. 293]</span>overwhelming
longing to gather her to his heart and hold her there forever. The
very air was steeped in melody. The full majestic chords rose and
melted in unison with the high, exquisitely sweet notes, and throbbed
their life away. She held the bow suspended a moment, then very
softly, half unconsciously, played a dreamy lullaby, and laid the
violin down in her lap.</p>

<p>Adam took her and it into his arms.</p>

<p>"Be careful, put it down gently," she said faintly; "it is your
soul and mine. Do you not know the secret of Antonio Stradivari, of
all the great makers of violins? Ah, they solved our riddle, Love,
ages ago. Do you not remember the story of Jacob Steiner, and how he
spent days and days in the woods, selecting the trees for his violins,
and how the spirits of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 294]</span>the trees
revenged themselves by telling him of their ruined lives till he went
mad?"</p>

<p>"But there was no madness in this music," Adam answered, "except,
except&#8212;"</p>

<p>"The supreme, sublime madness of love? Do you not know, surely you
do, that every perfect violin is as much man and woman as you and I?
The back of the violin is made from the timber of the female tree, the
belly of the male tree. The harmony depends on their vibrations, as
they clasp each other in an embrace as real&#8212;"</p>

<p>"As this," he cried, drawing her closer, and bending his handsome
head until their lips met. "Sweet, must I envy that violin?"</p>

<p>He felt her heart beating wildly against his own, their arms closed
around each other convulsively. The <span class="pagenum">[pg.
295]</span>sweetness of the music-laden, flower-scented air filled his
senses.</p>

<p>"God! how I love you!" he said.</p>

<p>A frightened look came into her eyes, and she struggled, for a
moment, futilely.</p>

<p>"Let me go!" she whispered; "let me go!"</p>

<p>"Do you want me to?" he answered, studying her face in the
moonlight.</p>

<p>"No," she said. "No, never again, but, oh, Adam!"</p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 296]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 297]</span></p>

<div class="chapterhead" id="chapterXXII">
<h2>XXII</h2>

<pre class="epigram">
I'm weary of conjectures&#8212;this must end them.

<span class="smcap">Addison.</span>
</pre>
</div>
<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 298]</span></p>

<p>&#160;<span class="pagenum">[pg. 299]</span></p>
<p>Adam had to go to the cane-fields across the range, and one of the
calves needed Robin's ministrations, so she could not go with him. He
started before the stars were set, that he might be back before night,
and returned twice to kiss her before he finally got away.</p>

<p>Left with the long day ahead of her, restless and lonely, she gave
the small house a thorough sweeping and cleaning. She had finished her
dusting, and was rearranging the furniture, when she shoved back the
long chest and struck the framework of the window with some little
violence. It was enough to jar a rusty key from its place above the
casement, and it dropped upon the chest with a kind
of <span class="pagenum">[pg. 300]</span>ominous clink as it struck
the lock, and fell upon the floor. She took it up and looked at it
curiously, and then, kneeling, fitted it in the lock.</p>

<p>"I wonder," she mused, "what I shall set free if I open this box;
is it Pandora's? But there was nothing left in hers but hope, and that
is all we need. How happy we could be if we dared to hope!"</p>

<p>She turned the key with a wrench, and the hasp shot from its place.
The chest was nearly empty, there being but one parcel in it. This was
done up carefully in a square of linen, pinned here and there. On the
bottom of the chest were several folds of white paper. Very slowly she
lifted out the parcel and opened it. The treasure was a gown; it was
of a heavy, satiny weave of linen, very yellow and creased. The bodice
was made without sleeves <span class="pagenum">[pg. 301]</span>or
neck, and the skirt was a kind of kilt plaited affair; the whole
effect was Greek, and, simple as it was, it seemed beautiful to Robin
after her year of dark, utilitarian clothing. There was white
underwear, and even white stockings, and a pair of slippers.</p>

<p>Robin drew a long breath of delight, and laying all her finery upon
the table placed the irons over the tripod that she might smooth the
wrinkles out, and set about making the necessary alterations at once.
She worked rapidly in spite of her excitement, but the hours slipped
away.</p>

<p>"I must try it on," she said, "before Adam comes; there will be
plenty of time, and then I will put it away until&#8212;"</p>

<p>Shroud or wedding-gown? She did not finish the sentence. She
dressed slowly; but when she had finished
she <span class="pagenum">[pg. 302]</span>was startled to see that the
image in the glass was so much fairer than she had ever thought
herself. Suddenly she discovered, with something like a pang, that
there was no belt, and hurried back to the chest to look again.</p>

<p>As she twitched out the remaining layer of paper in her eagerness,
a long white satin ribbon dropped from it, and a little heap of fine
muslin lay on the floor of the chest. She caught up the ribbon with an
exclamation of delight and adjusted it with trembling fingers. Her
flushed cheeks and radiant eyes, the long heavy braid of hair, her
round white arms and shoulders, made her a vision of delight indeed.
When she had quite completed her toilet, she sat down by the chest to
inspect its last secret. As she took up the pile of lace and muslin,
her heart <span class="pagenum">[pg. 303]</span>seemed to stop beating
for a moment. She had forgotten. Only the hands of the prospective
mother could have fashioned such dainty garments as these. Everywhere
the eternal question. All her perplexities had fallen from her in the
joy of dressing herself as Adam's bride should be decked, howbeit Adam
saw her not, but the great problem of life confronted her still.</p>

<p>She put the tiny garments down on the chest, closed now, having
given up its mystery, its hope of the world, and knelt by it, touching
them with loving, reverent fingers till the tears blinded her, and she
gathered up the clothes and kissed them as she had never kissed Adam,
as she had never kissed anything in her life. After awhile the tears
ceased to flow, and there stole over her a gracious calmness and then
the slumber of a child.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum">[pg. 304]</span>She did not hear Adam, nor
see him, until he passed the window and stood in the doorway, all the
sunset glow back of him. Then she started to her feet, her arms
closing instinctively over the tiny garments she had gathered to her
breast, as she stepped back, her face flushing and paling all in a
moment.
</p>

<p>He stood as if he dared not move lest the vision vanish, but heart
and soul looked out of his eyes.</p>

<p>"Eve," he said, "Eve!"</p>

<p>She turned, and he sprang toward her with an eager cry of joy.</p>

<p>"Eve," he repeated, "Eve, my love, my soul! You have decided; you
are going to be my wife. Oh, do not torture yourself or me any longer
with doubts that did not enter the mind of God Almighty when He made
us what we are. You are my world, dearer <span class="pagenum">[pg.
305]</span>than life, more necessary than the air we breathe. We are
only one being, separated God knows how long, but united now forever.
Nothing can part us again."</p>

<p>He stopped and held out his arms to her. He had taken her into
their shelter very often, but now he wanted her to come to him and
nestle against his heart of her own will. She took a single step,
stretching out her arms to him with a gesture of infinite trust and
abandon. The long sheer dress fluttered down to the floor, and lay
between them.</p>

<p>They stood as still as if frozen.</p>

<p>"Dare you cross it?" she said, and hid her face in her hands.</p>

<p>He stooped and picked it up, and looked at it as a man might look
at the soul of something of which he had never seen the body. He had a
<span class="pagenum">[pg. 306]</span>sense of his own strength, the
glory of his manhood, and a vision of his weakness. She watched him
breathlessly. He put the garment down on the table and smoothed it out
gently. There was in his face the combined look of a man who sees the
cradle and the coffin of his firstborn.</p>

<p>She went and stood beside him, touching the dress timidly. He
covered her hand with his own.</p>

<p>"My wife," he said, "we know all there is to say, all there is to
risk. We must do what is right. I am going now to set everything at
liberty. It is nearly sundown; you will meet me at the rock in half an
hour. If we give each other our right hands, we will fear no evil, not
though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, for the love
in our hearts is deathless, and though the sun sets,
it <span class="pagenum">[pg. 307]</span>is to rise upon another
shore. Death is only an incident, but life is eternal."</p>

<p>"We could not choose differently?" And though she spoke with the
upward inflection it was not a question.</p>

<p>"No, it would be quite impossible for either of us to desire what
the other did not. And much as we love each other, we will know we
have loved our race and honored God first in our decision. To live, if
we live, not for ourselves alone, but for the good of our kind; to
renounce love, the unspeakable gift, if need be, for the sake of what
seems to us right."</p>

<p>"And if I give you my left hand&#8212;?"</p>

<p>The sudden flash of light in his eyes half blinded her. He took
both her hands in his and looked deep in her beautiful unfathomable
eyes.</p>

<p>"Then the morning stars will sing <span class="pagenum">[pg.
308]</span>together, and all the sons of God shall shout for joy."</p>

<p>The sun dropped lower and lower over the high sharp peaks at the
west, covering their white summits with a flood of golden glory. The
sullen roar of the ocean seemed hushed, and across its wide expanse
the last beams of the setting sun made radiant pathways of crimson and
gold. A lark far up in the heavens sang its few clear notes as it
hastened homeward. Far away on the mountain-side the cattle lay
placidly, and a mare whinnied to her colt. The air was soft and warm
and drowsy with the scent of many flowers, the sounds of nestling
birds, the drone of an insect here and there, the cheerful call of the
crickets.</p>

<p>Adam stood by the rock and waited for her. She came toward him, all
the light of the world seeming to fall <span class="pagenum">[pg.
309]</span>upon her and circle her in a halo that transformed her
white draperies, and glistened like a million gems in the sparse grass
about her feet.</p>

<p>They made each other no greeting, but stood and looked into each
other's eyes, grave and sweet with the exaltation of their purpose.
And, standing so, they clasped hands, and the word they spoke was the
same, for they by searching had found out God.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<hr class="full">
<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER-KNOT OF HUMAN FATE***</p>
<p>******* This file should be named 20615-h.txt or 20615-h.zip *******</p>
<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br />
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/6/1/20615">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/6/1/20615</a></p>
<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.</p>

<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.</p>



<pre class="pg">
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license)</a>.


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
compressed (zipped), HTML and others.

Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
new filenames and etext numbers.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a>

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
download by the etext year.

<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a>

    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)

EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234

or filename 24689 would be found at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689

An alternative method of locating eBooks:
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a>

*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
</pre>
</body>
</html>
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-01-07 19:41:49 +0000